What it does
Conversation intelligence tools connect to a team's phone calls and video meetings, record and transcribe them, and analyze what was said. Typical features include searchable transcripts, talk-to-listen ratios, topic and competitor mentions, call summaries and alerts when a deal shows risk. Managers use them to review calls without sitting in, and leaders use the patterns across many calls to understand what is happening in the pipeline.
Example
After losing a deal, a manager searches the recorded calls for the moment pricing came up, finds the rep answered the price objection before asking a single question, and sets up a practice session on that objection for the following week.
Why teams use it
Without recordings, coaching depends on a manager joining a few live calls or relying on the rep's own account of what happened. Recording real calls makes coaching more objective: you can play back the moment a deal turned and talk about it. The limitation is that it only analyzes calls that already happened, with real buyers. That's why many teams pair it with practice, so reps can rehearse the moments that went wrong before the next real call.
Conversation intelligence vs practice tools
Conversation intelligence looks backward at real calls; roleplay and practice tools look forward. Some vendors now offer both. If you're comparing options, decide first which problem you're solving: insight into real deals, or more repetitions for reps. Vonvo focuses on practice. It scores roleplay calls and the real calls you run through its live coaching, but it doesn't import recordings from other tools yet.