intella, a deep-tech company specialising in Arabic-first speech intelligence, has entered into a partnership with Visa to advance conversational AI for financial institutions in the Middle East and North Africa.
The collaboration aims to develop solutions tailored to the region’s linguistic diversity, covering more than 25 Arabic dialects.
The initiative seeks to address what the companies describe as an “Intelligence Gap” in existing AI systems.
This gap is linked to two issues: the difficulty of accurately interpreting Arabic dialects and the common reliance on reviewing only a limited sample of customer calls.
intella’s technology has been designed specifically for the region and enables the analysis of all customer interactions, providing greater accuracy in dialect recognition.
The companies said this approach allows conversational data to be used more effectively to support decision-making in the banking sector.
“This is a pivotal moment. Visa’s partnership with intella validates our foundational belief: that true understanding of the Arab world cannot be an afterthought, it must be the core of the technology,”
said Nour Taher, Co-Founder and CEO of intella.
“We are not just providing a tool; we are unlocking the real voice of the customer for the entire regional banking ecosystem. This collaboration will empower financial leaders to make strategic decisions with unprecedented clarity, driving growth and innovation based on every customer conversation.”
As part of the agreement, Visa’s partner institutions will have access to intella’s product ecosystem, beginning with intellaCX, which processes unstructured call data for compliance, agent performance, and product development.
The companies also plan to introduce Ziila, intella’s AI agent, to support the development of new customer interaction models.
“Visa Implementation Services will lead the delivery and implementation of these solutions across the region to enable this partnership to go far beyond a simple technology integration, it is a shared commitment to expanding the capabilities of Arabic conversational AI, covering 25 dialects across the Middle East and North Africa,”
said Basma Berti, Vice President for Visa Consulting & Analytics.
Featured image credit: intella
