Visa and Intella Partner on Arabic-Language Conversational AI for Financial Institutions

Visa and intella, a builder of Arabic-first artificial intelligence models for enterprise contact centers, partnered to co-develop conversational AI models for financial institutions across the Middle East and North Africa.

These solutions will support more than 25 distinct Arabic dialects, the companies said in a Tuesday (Sept. 23) press release.

The companies will use intella’s technology to analyze every customer interaction and transform this conversational data into actionable intelligence that will enhance the customer service delivered by Visa’s partner banks, according to the release.

The collaboration will provide Visa’s network with access to intellaCX, which enables unstructured call data to be used for compliance, agent performance and product development, and Ziila, which is intella’s AI agent, per the release.

“We are not just providing a tool; we are unlocking the real voice of the customer for the entire regional banking ecosystem,” intella co-founder and CEO Nour Taher said in the release. “This collaboration will empower financial leaders to make strategic decisions with unprecedented clarity, driving growth and innovation based on every customer conversation.”

Basma Berti, vice president for Visa Consulting & Analytics, said in the release that the collaboration with intella includes Visa Consulting & Analytics co-developing and enriching conversational AI solutions for partners in the MENA region and Visa Implementation Services leading the delivery and implementation of these solutions across the region.

“Together, we are shaping a powerful unified solution that will empower financial institutions to deliver truly localized and innovative customer experiences at scale, supporting growth and transformation throughout the region,” Berti said.

Intella said Sept. 2 that it secured $12.5 million in a Series A funding round to invest in research and development, product expansion and regional hiring to accelerate the deployment of its AI models across the Arabic-speaking world.

The company said at the time in a press release that it supports enterprises in the finance, telecommunications and government sectors.

Robin Voogd, head of Middle East investments at Prosus Ventures, which led the funding round, said in the release: “The market opportunity in MENA is enormous, with over 7,500 companies and organizations operating across the region and Arabic being the fifth most spoken language globally.”

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