Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still showing its first glimmers in our day-to-day life, even though it’s being heavily explored on the research and development level. In MENA, AI is meekly starting to spread its roots and the numbers say it all. According to Accenture’s 2017 Digital Consumer Survey, 76% of the users in UAE are comfortable with AI customer service, while the global rate registers 62%. Moreover, 66% of users in KSA and 65% of users in Qatar favor AI customer service, based on another survey by PwC. Today, the region is more open to AI than ever, despite all the questions that orbit around the technology. With Aramex launching Aramex Bot - an AI chatbot on Facebook- to offer details about the company, track shipments, and more, and Dubai developing a roadmap for AI, a lot of startups are emerging in the MENA with AI as their focal technology.
PROMINENT MENA AI STARTUPS that allow the users to give their bots a unique personality in order to smartly interact with the customers and maintain conversations through complex dialogs and interactions. Established by Mohamed Nabil, WideBot is A Bot Framework Creator. It allows any person to create, modify, and execute automated command-based bots. The framework provides a wide array of intelligent services; it includes AI modules
WideBot’s first product is Menu Maker - a bot builder for restaurants. It’s a dashboard that allows any restaurant to build its personal Facebook Chatbot without the need for any technical or coding-related experience. Menu Maker presents a full solution that simulates the food ordering process. The framework has a lot of features that help restaurants
to negotiate with sellers to land the best deal.
Founded by Tarek Kabrit, Seez operates in both Lebanon and Dubai. The mobile app helps users who are looking to purchase a car in choosing the one that suits their needs and budget the best. It gives buyers a full reach to every car available in the market and allows them
Seez aims to build a new type of search engine. It uses image recognition search to help users know the market value of a car. All they have to do is snap the picture of any car to get a full report of its specs and its fair market value, on the go. Seez also leverages AI predictive models who instantly check the fair price of any car. Moreover, Seez comes equipped with an AI chatbot that liaises between buyers and sellers. Named Cesar, the bot will ask the buyers about the car they want and
in enhancing their customer service and monitoring their business.
WideBot came in first place at ArabNet Startup Battle Cairo. Widebot was also named the local winner in Seedtsars Egypt competition in October, and secured its seat at Seedstars World’s Summit in Switzerland.
Country: Egypt Launched: 2016 Category: Chatbot
will look for it in the entire market. It will then contact the relevant sellers, negotiate with them to get the fairest price, and get back to the buyers with the fairest deal for both parties. The startup has received $1.8M in seed funding from B&Y, Phoenician, and Wamda capital in 2017. Seez considers all other car search sites to be a competitor; however, being equipped with image recognition technology and an AI chatbot, they have an edge. Country: Lebanon Launched: 2015 Category: Cars
Fall 2017 THE QUARTERLY
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