Econet Ai nears completion of Ndebele-speaking chatbot

Econet Ai, a wholly owned artificial intelligence subsidiary of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, is preparing to launch its Ndebele-speaking customer-support chatbot later this month.

Developed using thousands of hours of recorded speech from Ndebele speakers, the AI model is being trained to understand customers’ questions and provide accurate, natural-language responses. The chatbot will initially be introduced in phases, with further training and refinement expected to make it fully conversational in Ndebele by the end of 2026.

The training process mirrors that used to develop Yamurai, Econet Ai’s Shona-speaking chatbot, which can already handle more than 70% of customer enquiries. Both systems learn from interactions in which Econet customer service agents respond to customers and resolve support queries.

Econet’s AI chatbots work alongside about 600 employees at the company’s customer-service contact centres, complementing the support provided by human agents. The chatbots currently communicate in English and Shona, with Ndebele and Tonga being added to make the services accessible to more Zimbabweans.

The company also plans to expand the platforms’ language capabilities to include major regional and international languages such as Swahili, Mandarin and French.

Beyond answering questions, Econet intends to make the chatbots “agentic”, enabling them to perform tasks on behalf of customers. These could include making restaurant reservations and assisting with other every day, business and economic activities.

The development of multilingual and agentic chatbots forms part of Econet’s broader strategy to use AI to improve customer service, increase accessibility and provide faster support across its platforms.

Econet Ai was launched earlier this year to deliver advanced artificial intelligence solutions to the Zimbabwean market.

It works closely with Cassava AI, the group’s global AI business, to develop technologies tailored to local needs while drawing on international expertise.