Although it has been in the market for less than a year, Arabot stands out as a powerful, pioneering platform that provides intelligent Arabic chat-bots built with a state-of-the-art Arabic NLP engine that accurately and efficiently understands and analyzes Arabic content and conversation. Arabot is part of the third season of Orange Jordan’s Business Innovation Growth (BIG), a growth-mode startup accelerator program, where Co-Founder and CEO Abdallah Faza says it was able to achieve even more success within just a few months after joining.
- Can you tell us about Arabot? How did the idea for your business come about?
Arabot was founded in May of last year in Amman just two weeks after CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media site would be launching its new messaging platform “Messenger,” opening the way for businesses to create chat-bots for the service.We saw this announcement as a paradigm shift in the customer care industry and an opportunity to improve and change for good the way that customers and businesses interact.
To introduce chat-bot services and artificial intelligence (AI) conversational products to the Arabic region, however, bots should speak and understand Arabic. As a solution, Dr. Kais Hassan and I founded Arabot with a mission to help businesses build intelligent Arabic bots that automate and improve the customer experience, while tremendously reducing operational costs.
- Although BIG Season 3 is not over yet, you have already signed into an agreement with Orange Jordan. What does this agreement entail?
First, we are so proud to sign with Orange Jordan, as the first company in its industry and in the country to deliver Arabic chat-bot services.
For us, as an early-stage technology startup, building a strategic partnership with a leading organization like Orange Jordan is a huge opportunity for us to deliver the best services and exceed all market and customer expectations. At the same time, it is a real indicator that our intelligent chat-bot products are able to address major needs and solve critical problems and challenges for internationally renowned businesses and organizations.
- What are some of the challenges you face as a startup in the tech industry, and how has BIG by Orange helped you overcome them?
There is nothing more important for startups than reaching product/market fit, where your products actual satisfy real market and business needs and demands.
By design and structure, BIG by Orange allows us to focus on this, all starting with being among just a few selected startups to participate. Through BIG, Orange Jordan offers us an excellent work environment, introduces us to the Orange network of partners and customers, and provides us with all of the required tools and resources to build up our products and services and present them in the most professional way to the market.
- What are your future plans? Where do you see Arabot five years from now?
Our plan for this year is to expand our offerings to different verticals and territories with a focus on two main elements: grow our network of partners and accelerate the building of Arabot technology and the platform itself.
Five years from now, I hope we will be able to solve major problems and challenges for our people, market,and business partners, as we continue to improve lives and experiences and deliver an enjoyable customer journey.