Arabic chatbots · Gulf and Saudi dialect

An Arabic chatbot that reads the way the Gulf types.

Your customers write "ابي" and "abi" and "ruz basmati 5kg" in the same week. We build Arabic chatbots and WhatsApp agents for UAE and Saudi businesses that understand all of it, answer from your real data, and pass the hard conversations to your team.

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What is an Arabic chatbot, and who builds one?

An Arabic chatbot is an AI assistant that reads and replies in Arabic as customers really write it: Gulf and Saudi dialect, Levantine, Egyptian, formal Modern Standard Arabic, and Arabizi in Latin letters. Hephon, an AI implementation studio headquartered in Dubai, builds them for UAE and Saudi businesses on WhatsApp, websites and apps.

Businesses we’ve worked with

Six ways customers write

One assistant, every dialect your customers use.

Pick a tab. Each one is a message typed the way people in that market actually type, and the reply an assistant we build would send back.

Your store · AI assistantlive

ابي اسوي كبسة لستة اشخاص الليلة، وش احتاج؟

أبشر! جهزت لك سلة كبسة لستة أشخاص: رز بسمتي ٥ كيلو، دجاج، بهارات كبسة، طماطم وبصل. تبي تراجعها قبل الدفع؟

Built a kabsa basket for six: 5kg basmati, chicken, kabsa spice, tomatoes and onions. Want to review it before checkout?

Basket built from the live catalogue

Illustrative conversations. The English line under each reply is a translation for this page.

Why most Arabic bots fail

One request, six spellings.

Most Arabic language models learned from news and textbooks, which are written in formal Arabic. Customers write in dialect, in Latin letters, with English mixed in. We have seen models that handle formal Arabic at 95% accuracy drop to 60% on Saudi dialect for the same intents. We fix that where it actually breaks: a dataset of your real customer messages, and a retrieval layer that maps every spelling to the right product or answer.

95% → 60%

Accuracy we saw off-the-shelf models lose, formal Arabic to Saudi dialect

أرغب في شراء أرزFormal (MSA)
ابي رزSaudi / Gulf
عايز رزEgyptian
بدي رزLevantine
abi ruzArabizi
ruz basmati 5kgMixed

What the assistant hears

Add rice to the basket

Basmati, 5kg bags
Only what is in stock at your store
This week's promotion first

On WhatsApp

Where your customers already message you.

In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, customers message a business on WhatsApp before they think of filling in a form. We build the assistant on the official WhatsApp Business Platform and connect it to your orders, stock and customer records, so a message ends with something done.

It does the task
Checks an order, books a slot, builds a basket, updates the record in your CRM. Every answer comes from live data.
It knows when to stop
When confidence drops or a customer is upset, it hands over to a person with the whole conversation attached. Nobody has to repeat themselves.
Official platform only
Verified business account, approved templates, no unofficial libraries that get numbers banned, and no bulk cold messaging.

Saudi dialect, inside the Panda app.

Panda is one of Saudi Arabia's largest grocery retailers. We built the conversational assistant inside its Android and iOS app in eight weeks. It searches the catalogue in Saudi dialect, turns "kabsa for six" into a basket, answers from Panda's own knowledge base, and hands off to a human agent through Genesys Cloud CX when it isn't sure. It now handles tens of thousands of conversations.

10M+

app users it serves

8 weeks

from start to live

Saudi dialect

understood as typed, never forced into formal Arabic

Human handoff

through Genesys Cloud CX, with full context

Read the Panda case study

How we build an Arabic chatbot.

One conversation type goes live first. We widen it once it holds up against real messages.

Read your real messages
We go through your WhatsApp and support history and find the conversation that repeats most and costs most.
Build the dialect layer
Real customer phrasing, anonymised and labelled by intent, plus a synonym map your own team checks. No synthetic test data.
Connect your systems
Catalogue, stock, orders, bookings and CRM, so it answers from your data and can act on it.
Launch with a human exit
Live on one channel with handoff to your team, then tuned weekly from the transcripts.

Arabic chatbot questions.

What is an Arabic chatbot?

An AI assistant that understands and replies in Arabic, including the dialects customers actually use (Gulf, Saudi, Levantine, Egyptian), formal Modern Standard Arabic, and Arabizi written in Latin letters. A good one also connects to your systems, so it can check an order or book an appointment instead of only answering questions.

Can a chatbot understand Gulf and Saudi dialect?

Yes, if it is built for it. Models trained mostly on formal Arabic lose a lot of accuracy on dialect; we've seen a drop from 95% to 60% on the same intents. The fix is a dataset of your real customer messages and a retrieval layer that maps dialect words to your products and answers. That is how the Panda assistant handles Saudi dialect in production.

Does it work on WhatsApp?

Yes. We build on the official WhatsApp Business Platform, with a verified business account and approved message templates. The same assistant can also run on your website, inside your app, and on Instagram, with one knowledge base behind all of them.

What about Arabizi and messages that mix Arabic and English?

Both are handled. "abi ruz", "3ndkom ruz basmati 5kg?" and a sentence that switches to English halfway through all resolve to the same intent. We test against real messages from your own customers, since that is what the assistant will see on day one.

When does it hand a conversation to a person?

When its confidence drops, when the customer asks for a human, or when the topic is one you have marked as people-only, such as refunds above a limit or complaints. Your agent gets the full conversation and what the assistant already checked, so the customer never starts again.

How long does it take to build, and what does it cost?

Panda's assistant went from start to live in eight weeks, and that was a large retailer with tens of thousands of products. Each build is scoped to a fixed price after a short discovery call, so you know the number before you commit.

Who builds Arabic chatbots in the UAE and Saudi Arabia?

Hephon is an AI implementation studio headquartered in Dubai. We build Arabic chatbots and WhatsApp agents for businesses in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and stay on after launch to tune them against real conversations.

AI customer support agent WhatsApp automation Panda case study AI implementation in Dubai AI implementation in Saudi Arabia Chatbot vs AI agent

Send us the questions your team answers all day.

We'll tell you which ones an Arabic chatbot can take over, and which should stay with people.

Book a call Or message us on WhatsApp

Prefer email? [email protected]

An Arabic chatbot that reads the way the Gulf types.

What is an Arabic chatbot, and who builds one?

One assistant, every dialect your customers use.

One request, six spellings.

Where your customers already message you.

It does the task

It knows when to stop

Official platform only

Saudi dialect, inside the Panda app.

How we build an Arabic chatbot.

Read your real messages

Build the dialect layer

Connect your systems

Launch with a human exit

Arabic chatbot questions.

Send us the questions your team answers all day.