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Hephon is an AI agency in Dubai (Hephon L.L.C-FZ) that builds AI voice agents that speak Lebanese Arabic, with French and English mixed in the way Lebanese callers mix them. We run our own Lebanese voice engine and publish what we measure.
Yes, with the right parts. In our blind tests one current text-to-speech voice scored 4.86 out of 5 for sounding Lebanese, while some well-known voices scored below 3. Speech recognition is the harder half: even the best engine we measured got about a quarter of Lebanese words wrong, so the agent confirms details before acting.
Lebanese callers mix three languages: “bonjour, baddi 2a3ref…”, “merci ktir”, English numbers inside Arabic sentences. On 60 recorded Lebanese clips with human transcripts, the best speech-to-text model we tested had a 26.1% word error rate and the worst 34.6%. On natural voice notes the ranking changed: the fastest engine, close to the best on read-aloud clips, fell to second last.
Every engine we tested made the same mistake: it rewrote Lebanese words into formal Arabic, turning الدجيج into الدجاج. A voice agent that repeats the caller’s words back as transcribed sounds wrong to a Lebanese ear, so ours never does. The full method and numbers are in our Arabic voice AI benchmark.
bonjour, baddi 2a3ref iza fi mawe3id lyom
Hello, I want to know if there are appointments today.
بدّي غيّر الموعد لبكرا الضهر
I want to move the appointment to tomorrow noon.
“rakam l hejz three-one-seven, merci”
A booking number in English inside an Arabic sentence.
Illustrative messages written the way customers write, not real customer messages.
The network, the money and the law each change how a voice agent is set up here.
Mobile service runs on two state-owned networks, alfa and touch, and fixed lines on Ogero. Connections drop more often than in the Gulf, so we build for retries: a message that fails is resent, and a call that cuts off can pick up where it left off.
Since the 2019 crisis most Lebanese businesses price in US dollars, and a lot of payment is cash: the World Bank put the cash economy at about 46% of GDP in 2022. An assistant here quotes in USD, handles cash on delivery and keeps the lira out unless your business uses it.
Source: Al-Monitor: World Bank on Lebanon’s cash economyLebanon’s data rules sit in Law No. 81 of 2018 on Electronic Transactions and Personal Data. It is lighter than the GDPR and there is no independent data protection authority to answer to, which is not a licence to be careless: we keep personal data to what the job needs and keep it out of model training.
Source: DLA Piper: data protection in LebanonGeneral information checked in November 2026, not legal advice.
Bookings, opening hours, order and account questions answered in Lebanese Arabic, French or English, whichever the caller uses.
Orders taken by phone or from WhatsApp voice notes, read back with a USD total before anything is placed.
Balance, renewal and outage questions for ISPs and similar businesses, answered from your billing and network data.
Phone numbers, names and amounts confirmed with the caller before the agent acts, because recognition errors are common in Lebanese.
We do not pick voices from a vendor’s language list. In October 2026 we ran blind listening tests on current text-to-speech and speech-to-speech voices and measured six speech-to-text engines on Lebanese audio. The live-voice engineering itself is proven on stage: the ForsaTEK AI panelist we built with KalaMena AI answered for an hour in 100 to 200 milliseconds. For Lebanese operators, we also replaced a Lebanese ISP’s 25-year-old billing system and built its customer bot.
Read the Arabic voice AI benchmarkA focused first build usually lands between a few thousand and a few tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how many channels and systems it touches and how clean your data is. We scope a fixed price after a short discovery call, so you know the number before you commit. We quote in USD; call minutes are a running cost we estimate with you.
A first call type usually goes live within a few weeks. Most of that time goes into testing the voice and the read-back on real Lebanese calls.
Yes, when the voice is chosen for it. In our blind tests the best voice scored 4.86 out of 5 for sounding Lebanese with a native rater, while some voices marketed as Arabic scored 2 to 3. We pick by listening, not by language list.
Less accurate than on English. On 60 Lebanese clips the best engine we measured had a 26.1% word error rate. That is why our agents read back numbers and names before acting.
Yes. Lebanese callers switch languages mid-sentence, and the agent follows. It answers in the language the caller is using.
Calls in Lebanon drop more often than in the Gulf. The agent keeps the conversation state, so a caller who rings back can continue rather than start over.
Yes. We already run a Lebanese ISP’s operations platform and customer bot. A voice agent answers the same account and outage questions from the same data.
Hephon (Hephon L.L.C-FZ), an AI agency in Dubai with a Lebanese engineering team. We run our own Lebanese voice engine and publish our measurements.
Tell us what fills your team’s day and we will tell you honestly whether AI can take it, and at what fixed price.
