Choose a voice and dialect

About 5 minutesNo code neededUpdated July 2026

A persona decides how your agent sounds — which voice it speaks with, in what language and dialect, and with what tone. You'll create one in about a minute and reuse it across as many agents as you like.

Every agent needs to sound like something. A persona packages that up: a voice from the catalog, a language, an optional dialect, a communication style, personality traits, and free-text speaking instructions. Build a persona once and attach it to as many agents as you like — change the persona and every agent using it speaks differently on the next call. Personas live under Library › Personas and belong to your organization; any admin or member can create and edit them.

Open Personas

In the sidebar, go to Library › Personas. The list shows every persona in your organization, in list or grid view — toggle with the List/Grid control.

Screenshot: the Personas list with Voice, Language, Style, Traits, and Preview columns and a Default badge — Every persona in your organization — one of them can carry the Default badge.

Start a new persona

Click the Create persona card. A panel titled Agent Persona slides in from the right with all the fields.

Screenshot: the Agent Persona sheet with Voice, Language, Accent, Communication Style, Personality Traits, and Speaking Instructions fields — Voice and Language do the heavy lifting; style, traits, and instructions shape the delivery.

Name it

Enter a Name (required) and an optional Description so teammates know what the persona is for.

Pick the voice, language, and dialect

Choose a Voice from the dropdown (it lists only active voices from your catalog), then a Language. If dialect presets exist for that language, the Accent dropdown lets you pick one; otherwise it stays disabled with a No accents for this language hint.

Set the tone

Pick a Communication Style, toggle the Personality Traits that fit, and write Speaking Instructions — greetings, pacing, and any phrasing rules.

Save

Optionally tick Set as default persona, then click Create Persona. It's now ready to attach to any agent.

What's inside a persona

Field	What it does
Name	Required. How you'll recognize the persona in lists. Up to 100 characters.
Description	Optional internal note. Up to 500 characters.
Voice	The voice the agent speaks with. The dropdown lists only active voices from your Voices catalog.
Language	One of English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi.
Accent	Optional dialect preset. Only presets that match the persona's language — and that are active — appear here.
Communication Style	One of Formal, Casual, Friendly, or Professional.
Personality Traits	Pick any of: enthusiastic, calm, empathetic, assertive, patient, helpful, confident, warm, friendly.
Speaking Instructions	Free text — phrasing, pacing, greetings, anything that shapes delivery. Up to 2,000 characters.
Set as default	Checkbox. Marks this as your organization's default persona for new agents (see below).

Getting the dialect right

For GCC audiences, dialect match matters more than almost anything else. A Modern Standard Arabic voice can sound stiff to a Khaleeji caller, and a Levantine voice can feel out of place in the Gulf. Pick the voice closest to your callers, then reinforce it with a line or two of speaking instructions (for example, open with a Khaleeji greeting and keep sentences short).

An empty Accent dropdown is fine:

for most organizations the Accent dropdown will be empty or disabled, and that's expected — you can still shape dialect entirely through your choice of Voice plus Speaking Instructions. If you need a specific dialect preset added, contact support.

Voices, personas, and models — who does what

It helps to keep three layers straight. A persona never duplicates a voice or a model; it only references them.

Voices catalog — the pool of voices (Qalyb system voices plus your organization's custom voices) that a persona picks from. The persona's Voice dropdown is just this catalog, filtered to active voices.
Accents — dialect presets that layer a speaking-style instruction on top of a language. A persona optionally attaches one.
Models — the AI that thinks and listens behind the agent. These are organization-wide model defaults, not part of the persona. A persona governs how the agent sounds; models govern how it thinks and listens.

Voice cloning happens in the Voices area, not here:

you can't create a brand-new voice from the persona form — the dropdown only selects from voices that already exist in your catalog. To register a custom voice or clone one from a reference clip, work in the Voices area of the dashboard. Once a voice is in the catalog and active, it shows up in the persona picker.

The default persona

Exactly one persona per organization can be flagged as the default. It has two jobs:

No agent is ever voiceless. When you create your organization's first agent, Qalyb auto-creates a Default persona if none exists, so the agent always has a voice to fall back on.
Setting a new default clears the old one. Tick Set as default persona on a different persona and the previous default is un-flagged automatically — there's never more than one.

Attach it to an agent

A persona does its work through agents. You pick it while building or editing an agent, and because the agent references the persona rather than copying it, editing the persona later updates every agent attached to it. See Your agent, explained for where the persona fits in the builder.

Edit or remove a persona

Open a persona from the list (click the row or its pencil icon), then click Edit. Change any field across the Persona Details, Voice & Language, and Tone & Style sections, then Save Changes. To remove a persona, use the trash icon in the list.

Deleting a persona is admin-only:

any admin or member can create and edit personas, but deleting one is admin-only — and you should make sure no live agents still depend on a persona before you delete it.

For developers

Personas have a full CRUD API under /agent-personas. Reads require agents:read; creates and updates require agents:write (admin or member); deletes require agents:delete (admin).

Endpoint	Purpose	Permission
`GET /agent-personas`	List the org's personas	`agents:read`
`GET /agent-personas/:id`	Fetch one persona with its joined voice and accent	`agents:read`
`POST /agent-personas`	Create a persona	`agents:write`
`PATCH /agent-personas/:id`	Update a persona	`agents:write`
`DELETE /agent-personas/:id`	Delete a persona	`agents:delete` (admin)

Create a persona programmatically:

curl · bash

curl -X POST https://api.qalyb.ai/agent-personas \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-live-..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Gulf Concierge",
    "description": "Warm, formal receptionist for Gulf-Arabic callers.",
    "voiceId": "f0a1b2c3-4d5e-6f70-8a91-2b3c4d5e6f70",
    "language": "ar",
    "accentId": "a9b8c7d6-1234-4e5f-90ab-cdef12345678",
    "communicationStyle": "formal",
    "personalityTraits": ["warm", "patient", "helpful"],
    "speakingInstructions": "Open with a Khaleeji greeting. Keep sentences short and reassuring.",
    "isDefault": false
  }'

List personas to grab an id:

curl · bash

curl https://api.qalyb.ai/agent-personas \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-live-..."

Attach a persona to an agent by passing its id as personaId:

curl · bash

curl -X PATCH https://api.qalyb.ai/v1/agents/agt_abc123 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-live-..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "personaId": "f47e2c12-8b8d-4f8e-9b16-7c1a8f9c3a01" }'

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