# Do coding agents recommend Retell AI? > Retell AI was chosen in 18% of 308 judged voice agents sessions, ranking second. Measured with Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Source: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-retell-ai Published: 2026-09-03 Publisher: Armature, Inc. (https://armature.tech) --- > Retell AI was chosen in 18% of 308 judged voice agents sessions, ranking second. It was also raised as a candidate in 110 further sessions without being chosen. This page reports what happened when Claude Code, Codex and Cursor had to solve a problem in voice agents inside a realistic codebase. Not what a chat assistant says about Retell AI. What an agent actually installed. ## The numbers | | | | --- | --- | | Category | Voice agents | | Sessions in the category | 308 | | Sessions where Retell AI was chosen | 55 | | Install share | 18% | | Rank in category | 2 of 18 | | Codebases it won in | 8 | | Raised as a candidate, not chosen | 110 | | Chosen when considered | 33% | | Site | retellai.com | ## By agent The three agents land within 12 points of each other on Retell AI, which is closer than most products in this experiment manage. | Agent | Sessions | Chose Retell AI | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Claude Code | 94 | 12 | 13% | | Codex | 110 | 28 | 25% | | Cursor | 104 | 15 | 14% | ## By who was asking Retell AI does much better with one kind of buyer than another. It won 32% of sessions asked as vibe coder and 7% of those asked as enterprise team. | Who is asking | Sessions | Chose Retell AI | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Vibe coder | 62 | 20 | 32% | | Junior developer | 42 | 4 | 10% | | Senior engineer | 128 | 26 | 20% | | Enterprise team | 76 | 5 | 7% | ## What Retell AI was up against The full ranking in voice agents, from the same sessions: | # | Product | Runs won | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Vapi | 74 | 24% | | 2 | Retell AI **(this page)** | 55 | 18% | | 3 | OpenAI Realtime API | 37 | 12% | | 4 | LiveKit Agents | 35 | 11% | | 5 | ElevenLabs Agents | 30 | 10% | | 6 | Twilio ConversationRelay | 28 | 9% | | 7 | Built in-house (no product adopted) | 18 | 6% | | 8 | Azure Voice Live API | 10 | 3% | ## What this means A solid second or third position in a category means the agent is genuinely choosing rather than reaching automatically. That is a winnable position, because the inputs it uses can be changed. The fastest gains are usually in the sessions that were nearly won: read them, find the step where the agent moved on, and fix that step. ## Where these numbers come from The 308 sessions in voice agents are part of a published set of 5,292, run with real coding agents inside realistic codebases and judged blind. The full method is on one page: [how we measured this](/library/how-we-measured-this). Every voice agents run can be replayed on [the board](/leaderboards/voice-agents). If you work on Retell AI: the judge recorded a reason for every session where it was raised and passed over. Those reasons are in the transcripts. ## Common questions ### Do coding agents recommend Retell AI? Yes. Retell AI was chosen in 55 of the 308 judged sessions in voice agents, a 18% install share, ranking second in its category. ### Does Claude Code recommend Retell AI? In 12 of the 94 sessions in voice agents run with Claude Code, which is 13%. ### Do different coding agents treat Retell AI differently? Yes, and by a wide margin. Codex chose it in 25% of its runs and Claude Code in 13%. ### How was this measured? Real coding agents at pinned versions were run in sandboxes inside 51 realistic codebases and asked to solve real tasks. A simulated project owner approved or questioned each recommendation before any code was written, and a judge from a model family that builds none of the agents read every session blind. ### How often is Retell AI considered but not chosen? It was raised as a candidate in 110 sessions without being chosen, and chosen in 55. That is a 33% conversion from considered to chosen. ## Read next - [How to get picked for voice agents by coding agents](https://armature.tech/library/voice-agents-coding-agents-playbook) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/voice-agents-coding-agents-playbook.md) - [Do coding agents recommend Vapi?](https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-vapi) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-vapi.md) - [Do coding agents recommend OpenAI Realtime API?](https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-openai-realtime-api) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-openai-realtime-api.md) - [Do Claude Code, Codex and Cursor pick the same tools?](https://armature.tech/library/do-claude-code-and-codex-agree) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-claude-code-and-codex-agree.md) --- Armature helps software products get discovered and used by coding agents. Service: https://armature.tech/discoverability · Results: https://armature.tech/leaderboards/sectors · Contact: contact@armature.tech