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Hephon is an AI agency in Dubai (Hephon L.L.C-FZ) that builds WhatsApp AI agents for businesses in Saudi Arabia, in Saudi dialect, connected to the systems that hold orders, bookings and accounts. Our team built the Saudi-dialect assistant inside the Panda app.
It answers customers on your verified WhatsApp number in Najdi, Hijazi and Gulf Arabic and in English, completes orders, bookings and account requests from your live systems, sends updates as utility messages billed at Saudi rates in SAR, records marketing consent as the PDPL requires, and passes anything uncertain to your team.
For many Saudi customers WhatsApp is how they contact a business, not the website. Messages come in dialect, often as voice notes, sometimes as a photo of a shopping list or a product, and frequently after hours. The phrasing changes by region: ابي and وش in Riyadh, ابغى and ايش in Jeddah.
A WhatsApp agent here must understand that without converting it into formal Arabic first, and reply in the customer’s register. It also has to work through Ramadan rhythms, when message volume moves late into the night, which is when an agent that answers in seconds earns its keep.
ابي اطلب ٢ حليب و خبز، توصلون حي النرجس؟
I want to order two milks and bread, do you deliver to Al Narjis?
ابغى اغير موعدي لبكرة بعد المغرب
Hijazi: I want to move my appointment to tomorrow after maghrib.
photo of a handwritten list
A shopping list sent as an image.
wain wsl tlbi?
Arabizi: Where has my order got to?
Illustrative messages written the way customers write, not real customer messages.
A WhatsApp agent in the Kingdom collects personal data and, often, sends marketing. Both are regulated.
Meta has charged per template message since 1 July 2025, at rates specific to Saudi Arabia, and it can bill in SAR. Replies inside the 24-hour window after a customer writes are not template messages, so flows that answer rather than broadcast keep the bill small.
Source: Meta: WhatsApp Business Platform pricingMarketing messages and calls fall under the PDPL and the rules on spam messages and calls. Consent has to come from the customer directly, and consent buried in a privacy policy does not count. Opt-ins are recorded with the conversation, and opt-outs are honoured on the next message.
Source: Al Tamimi: marketing consent in Saudi ArabiaThe Personal Data Protection Law came into force on 14 September 2023 and has been fully enforceable since 14 September 2024, supervised by the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA). Every field the assistant asks for needs a purpose, and customers can ask what is held about them.
Source: Clyde & Co: Saudi PDPL becomes enforceableSDAIA’s regulation on transferring personal data outside the Kingdom allows transfers under conditions, some with a risk assessment first, and sector regulators can require data to stay in Saudi Arabia. We choose where conversations are stored and which model regions are used with you, before launch.
Source: CMS: one year of the Saudi PDPLGeneral information checked in November 2026, not legal advice.
Products found from a dialect request, price and stock confirmed per branch, the basket shown back for confirmation before anything is placed.
Appointments and reservations booked from your calendar, with reminder and change flows in the same chat.
Marketing opt-ins captured and stored with the conversation; “stop” or its Arabic equivalents honoured at once.
Uncertain or sensitive conversations routed to your team in your helpdesk or contact centre, with the thread and what the agent already checked.
Our team built the conversational assistant inside the Panda app: product search in Saudi dialect, recipe to basket, answers from Panda’s knowledge base, and handoff through Genesys Cloud CX. It lives in the app, not on WhatsApp, and was designed so new channels reuse the same brain. For supermarkets that want WhatsApp ordering now, our product Hephon Commerce does it.
Read the Panda 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. Meta’s per-message charges are billed by Meta, at Saudi rates and in SAR if you choose; we estimate them from your volumes.
A first flow typically goes live within a few weeks, including Meta business verification and template approval. Panda’s in-app assistant took eight weeks at national scale.
Yes, including the differences between regions, such as ابي in Najd and ابغى in the Hijaz, plus Arabizi and English. It is tested on messages in the dialects your customers use before launch.
Meta charges per template message at rates specific to Saudi Arabia and can bill in SAR. Replies inside the 24-hour window after a customer writes are not template messages. Our build is a separate fixed price.
Yes. Marketing falls under the PDPL and the rules on spam messages and calls, and consent has to come from the customer directly. The agent records opt-ins with the conversation and honours opt-outs immediately. This is general information, not legal advice.
It can take orders and send a payment link from your provider. Nothing is placed until the customer confirms the basket, and money never moves on the model’s say-so.
Where your sector’s rules allow. We agree hosting and model regions with you in discovery, with SDAIA’s transfer regulation in mind.
No. We built Panda’s assistant inside its Android and iOS apps. We build WhatsApp agents for other businesses, and Hephon Commerce, our separate product, handles WhatsApp ordering for supermarkets.
Our product for retailers
Hephon Commerce
For Saudi supermarkets and grocery delivery, Hephon Commerce takes orders on WhatsApp in Saudi Arabic and English, with prices and stock per branch, and orders only after the shopper confirms.
Tell us what fills your team’s day and we will tell you honestly whether AI can take it, and at what fixed price.
