Business Reporter
Econet AI, a wholly owned artificial intelligence subsidiary of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, is preparing to launch its Ndebele-speaking customer-support chatbot later this month (September 2026).
The new model has been developed using thousands of hours of recorded speech from Ndebele speakers. It is being trained to comprehend complex queries and deliver natural-language responses.
The initiative is part of a broader strategy to bridge communication gaps and improve customer service across Zimbabwe.
The chatbot will initially launch in phases, with ongoing refinements aimed at making it fully conversational in Ndebele by the end of 2026.The development mirrors the training process used for Yamurai, Econet’s Shona-speaking chatbot, which already successfully resolves over 70% of customer support queries.
The new AI assistant will work alongside roughly 600 human agents at Econet’s contact centres to provide faster, 24/7 automated assistance.
In addition to English, Shona, and the upcoming Ndebele launch, Econet plans to introduce Tonga, followed by major regional and international languages like Swahili, Mandarin, and French.
Beyond answering standard account and network questions, Econet plans to give these chatbots “agentic” capabilities, allowing them to complete tasks like making restaurant reservations on behalf of users.
