Econet Ai, a wholly owned subsidiary of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, has launched Shona 2.0, an upgraded AI language model that can understand and respond to 80% of customer queries.
The model powers Yamurai, Econet’s multilingual customer support chatbot, and can now understand customers who mix Shona and English when speaking, a common challenge for AI language models.
Econet said the latest version puts Shona comprehension on par with international languages, marking the first time an African AI language model has reached this level.
The company is also training the model in six Shona dialects, enabling it to eventually identify a customer’s dialect and respond accordingly.
“AI models are trained just like children; they learn and continually improve from listening to our customers. So, you find that in the beginning Yamurai in Shona was like speaking to a robot, but today it is getting much more like a person. It is getting better all the time,” said Econet Ai CEO Navdeep Kapur.
Econet said Yamurai has improved its ability to handle customer inquiries and reduced waiting times on its helpline, helping ensure that all queries are addressed.
The company launched Ndebele 1.0 last month and said work on Ndebele 2.0 is at an advanced stage, with a launch expected before the end of November.
“Now there is real light at the end of the tunnel, as AI opens solutions at all levels of telco operations. It takes time to get them all deployed but we are confident that we are only months away from having the best service in Africa,” Kapur said.
Econet Ai was launched earlier this year and works with Cassava AI, the artificial intelligence business of Cassava Technologies, to develop and deploy AI solutions for the Zimbabwean market.
