Saudi-based startup Sawt has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to build AI-powered voice agents tailored for Arabic-speaking call centres. The round was led by Core Vision Ventures(a venture capital firm), with participation from several undisclosed angel investors. The investment marks a growing focus on Arabic-native AI tools for business automation across the Gulf region.
Sawt, meaning “voice” in Arabic, is building a conversational AI engine that fluently understands and speaks Arabic. The tool powers automation of high-volume call centre interactions, enabling companies to reduce operational costs.
Filling a Language-Specific Gap
Unlike global platforms like Google Assistant, Sawt builds voice agents trained on Arabic speech and dialects. Localisation is emerging as Sawt’s key differentiator in the market.
The company claims its AI agents can handle tasks such as booking appointments and responding to inquiries all in natural Arabic. The automation of these roles may appeal to enterprises seeking to modernize without relying on English-language interfaces.
Strategic Timing and Market Fit
The investment comes at a time when interest in AI tools for customer service is surging across the Middle East. Governments and corporations in the Gulf are pushing digital transformation, and Arabic-language AI is emerging as a strategic priority. Sawt is targeting a market that voice automation tools have historically neglected, especially those tailored to local languages.
By starting with Arabic, Sawt positions itself as a technical and cultural fit for enterprises in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
What’s Next for Sawt
Though still early-stage, Sawt’s funding signals confidence in its potential to reshape customer service in the region. Its key challenge will be scaling fast while preserving language accuracy and context, areas where global AI voice systems often fall short.
If successful, Sawt could become a foundational player in Arabic-language AI, with applications not just in call centres, but across banking, healthcare, government, and more.
The funding round also underscores a broader shift: investors are no longer only backing AI platforms built in English. Startups solving for local languages, cultures, and use-cases are now attracting early capital, and Sawt is among the first in the region to raise on that promise.
