UAE Bank Launched Arabic-First Voicebot — 81% Containment, 12 Weeks to Production

The Challenge

Customer support handled 90K+ calls/month split across Arabic (Gulf and MSA), English and Hindi. Existing IVR had 38% drop-off. Customers waited up to 14 minutes during peak. The bank wanted Arabic-first AI but every off-the-shelf platform tested had unacceptable accent and code-switching errors.

Our Solution

Iedeo built a 3-language voicebot with native Gulf Arabic speech recognition, code-switching to English, and integration with the core banking system for account balance, mini-statement, card block/unblock, and bill payment. UAE PDPL-aligned with full audit logging.

Architecture & Stack

• Telephony via Etisalat trunk + WhatsApp Business Voice
• Custom Whisper fine-tuned on Gulf Arabic + Egyptian + MSA (8K hours)
• Claude 3.5 Sonnet for dialogue (multilingual)
• ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 for Arabic voice
• Core banking integration via secure middleware (Temenos T24)
• On-prem deployment (Abu Dhabi data centre) — UAE PDPL residency
• Real-time fraud signal injection for high-risk transactions

Timeline

4 weeks discovery → 10 weeks build → 6 weeks pilot in 2 branches → 6 weeks ramp

“Iedeo understood the cultural nuance of customer service in the Gulf. The voicebot does not just translate English to Arabic — it speaks the way our customers expect to be spoken to.”