Lani
The Lani Blog

Writing on conversational AI
for service businesses.

Buyer's guides, pricing breakdowns, and the operational economics of running a service business front office on AI in 2026.

Landscape

The Conversational AI Platform Landscape in 2026

The conversational AI platform category is now too crowded to evaluate one vendor at a time. Here's the four-category map and how to figure out which one you're actually shopping in.

7 min

Pricing

How Much Does AI Customer Service Cost? (2026 Breakdown)

AI customer service is genuinely cheaper than a human support team for the use cases it handles well. But the pricing pages are confusing. Here's the actual math.

6 min

Healthcare

AI for Medical Practices: A Practical HIPAA Guide for 2026

Med spas, dental offices, and other medical practices want the same AI receptionist productivity as everyone else — but most consumer AI tools can't legally handle a healthcare conversation. Here's the checklist.

9 min

Strategy

How Conversational AI Recovers Cold Leads (Without Sounding Like a Spammer)

Every service business has a database full of leads that never booked. Most of them aren't dead — they were just busy when you first talked to them. Conversational AI changes the economics of reactivating them.

7 min

Pricing

How Much Does an AI Call Center Cost in 2026?

Traditional call centers cost $3,000–$8,000 per seat per month. AI call centers cost a fraction of that — but the pricing models are different and not all of them are honest. Here's the breakdown.

7 min

Explainer

Conversational AI vs Chatbot: What's Actually Different

Every vendor calls their thing "conversational AI" now. Most of them are running 2018-era chatbots with a new label. Here's how to tell the difference — and why it matters for the ROI math.

6 min

Buyer's Guide

The Best AI Receptionist for Service Businesses in 2026

If you Google "best AI receptionist" in 2026 you get fifty vendors making nearly identical claims. Here's how to actually evaluate one — and the five things that separate a real AI receptionist from a chatbot with a phone number.

8 min