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Hephon is an AI agency in Dubai (Hephon L.L.C-FZ), with its engineering roots in Lebanon, that builds chatbots for Lebanese businesses: assistants that read Lebanese Arabic, Arabizi, French and English in the same message and answer from the business’s own systems.
Lebanese customers write in Arabizi more than in Arabic script, mix French and English into the same sentence, and expect prices in US dollars. A useful chatbot reads all of that, answers from your real billing, stock or booking data on WhatsApp or Telegram, and hands off to a person when the question needs one.
In Lebanon the dominant way to write Arabic on a phone is Latin letters with numbers for the sounds Latin lacks: 3 for ع, 7 for ح, 2 for the glottal stop. “Baddi 2a3ref” means “I want to know”. French and English words arrive mid-sentence without warning, and the same customer may write Arabic script in the next message. Generic Arabic models trained on formal text read very little of this correctly.
We have measured the problem on the voice side: on 60 recorded Lebanese clips with human transcripts, the best speech-to-text model we tested still got about one word in four wrong, and every engine rewrote Lebanese words into formal Arabic. Text has the same pull. We build and test on Lebanese messages, not on translations of English ones.
baddi 2a3ref iza fi delivery 3al Achrafieh lyom
Arabizi: I want to know if there is delivery to Achrafieh today.
bonjour, el internet ma3am yemshi men mbere7
French greeting, Arabizi complaint: the internet has not worked since yesterday.
مرحبا، بدي غيّر الباقة تبعي
Lebanese in Arabic script: Hi, I want to change my plan.
kam l se3er bel dollar? merci
How much is it in dollars? Thanks.
Illustrative messages written the way customers write, not real customer messages.
The rules are lighter than in the Gulf, the economy is not, and the network is less forgiving. All four shape the build.
Lebanon’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 LebanonSince 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 economyWhatsApp is the default in Lebanon, but not everywhere: the ISP we work with found its customers on Telegram and built self-service there. We check where your customers actually write before choosing a channel.
Meta has charged per template message since 1 July 2025. Lebanon has no rate of its own: it sits in Meta’s “Rest of Middle East” group with Bahrain, Jordan and Yemen, billed in US dollars, so costs are planned on that group’s rates.
Source: Meta: WhatsApp Business Platform pricingGeneral information checked in November 2026, not legal advice.
On WhatsApp or Telegram, wherever your customers are: account questions, location-based service queries, issue reports and simple changes without a phone call.
Staff ask questions of your data in plain language, in Arabic, French or English, and get the answer without knowing which screen or query holds it.
Menus, catalogues and appointment slots read from your system, with prices in USD and cash on delivery as a normal option.
Anything the bot cannot settle goes to a named team member with the conversation attached, so the customer does not start over.
For a Lebanese internet provider with about 2,000 customers we replaced a 25-year-old billing system in three months, added a Telegram bot customers use to share their location, report issues and manage their account, and built an AI assistant the team uses to query its own data in plain language. Telegram was chosen because that is where the customers already were.
Read the Lebanese ISP case studyA 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 and invoice in USD.
The ISP platform shipped its first major version within weeks of kickoff and replaced the old system inside three months, including a two-week parallel run. A chatbot on top of systems you already have is usually a few weeks.
Yes, if it is built and tested for it. We test on real Lebanese messages that mix Arabizi, Arabic script, French and English, and the bot replies in the style the customer used.
Wherever your customers already write. WhatsApp is the usual answer in Lebanon, but the ISP we work with found its customers on Telegram and built there. We look at your inbound messages before deciding.
Yes, Law No. 81 of 2018 on Electronic Transactions and Personal Data, though it is lighter than European or Gulf laws and has no independent regulator. We still keep personal data to what the task needs and out of model training. This is general information, not legal advice.
Yes. Most Lebanese businesses price in US dollars and much of payment is cash, so the bot quotes in USD and treats cash on delivery as a normal option.
Meta bills per template message and puts Lebanon in its “Rest of Middle East” rate group. Replies inside the 24-hour window after a customer writes are not template messages, so a bot that mostly answers costs little to run.
Hephon (Hephon L.L.C-FZ) is an AI agency headquartered in Dubai with its engineering team rooted in Lebanon. We build chatbots, internal assistants and operations platforms for Lebanese businesses, including a Lebanese ISP.
Our product for retailers
Hephon Commerce
For grocers and online stores in Lebanon: Hephon Commerce answers shoppers in Lebanese Arabic, Arabizi and English on WhatsApp and in your app, and builds the basket from your own catalogue.
Tell us what fills your team’s day and we will tell you honestly whether AI can take it, and at what fixed price.
