Can an AI Phone Agent Serve Quebec Customers in French Under Law 25?

Short answer: yes, with care. Voice agents speak French, and WhatsApp and chat replies cover French too, so an agent can greet a caller in Montréal in French and switch to English if they prefer. We claim the language, not a Quebec accent of it. A Quebec business must also consider the Charter of the French language, which gives customers the right to be informed and served in French, and Law 25, Quebec's amended private-sector privacy law, which asks for an assessment before personal information leaves Quebec. Take advice on both.

Can the agent actually speak French?

Yes. Voice agents speak French, among 50 voice languages, and chat and WhatsApp replies run in 37 languages that include French. You choose each voice in a searchable library and listen before you pick. What we have not done is publish how each voice sounds to a Quebec listener, and we make no claim about a Canadian-French accent. Ring the agent from the browser, ask a Quebecer to read ten real questions from your inbox, and include place names such as Trois-Rivières or Chicoutimi, and surnames, which are the usual weak point.

What does the Charter of the French language ask of a business?

Section 5 of the Charter gives consumers the right to be informed and served in French. According to law-firm commentary read on 25 October 2026 (we did not read the statute itself), that right was long considered declaratory, and Bill 96 made it binding on businesses from 1 June 2022, extending the duty to inform and serve customers in French beyond consumers. The commentary also says that any consumer can ask for an end to a violation, except where the business has fewer than five employees, and that the Office québécois de la langue française can issue orders. For an AI agent this suggests:

• Open in French in Quebec, offering English second, rather than the other way round.
• Make the knowledge base, templates and written confirmations available in French.
• Do not rely on an English-only agent for Quebec customers, even if your staff are bilingual.

Whether and how the Charter applies to your business, your size and your sector is a question for a Quebec adviser.

What is Law 25?

Law 25 amended Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (the statute is P-39.1). The Commission d'accès à l'information, the regulator, says the Act has been amended and points businesses to its guidance. Law-firm summaries read on 25 October 2026 report, and we have not verified against the statute, that businesses must carry out a privacy impact assessment before transferring personal information outside Quebec, weighing the sensitivity of the data, the purposes, the safeguards and the legal framework at the destination; that this took effect on 22 September 2023; and that penalties are heavy. Read the Act itself for the figures; we do not quote them.

Where does the data go?

We support region deployments for enterprise customers. Calls are also processed partly in other countries, with speech recognition in the EU and the voice and the language model in the US, under transfer safeguards. Federal law, PIPEDA, applies to personal information that crosses borders even where a province has its own law (Privacy Commissioner, read 25 October 2026).

What should the greeting and the notice say?

1. Greet in French first, say who you are and that this is an automated assistant, and offer to continue in English.
2. If you record calls (off by default), say so in the greeting. Under section 184 of the Criminal Code, intercepting a private communication is an offence without consent, express or implied, so telling the caller is the safe course.
3. Point to a privacy policy in French that says what you collect, why, and that processing happens outside Quebec.
4. Name a person in your business responsible for personal information, and say how customers reach them.

When is it not the right fit?

If you serve patients, tenants or clients in Quebec where every sentence has legal weight, or your sector has its own rules about where records may be kept, an agent is best used for scheduling and messages, with a person taking the substantive call. And if Quebec law requires data to stay in the province, ask us about the enterprise route; we promise no region or date. Read the official text; this is not legal advice. More in the Canada page, the AI receptionist page and AI receptionists for Canadian small businesses.