- The smart speaker will be available in the UAE and Saudi markets in the first quarter of 2024.
- Yasmina can understand multiple Arabic dialects and respond in GCC Arabic and English.
There are many AI-enabled smart speakers on the market and their popularity has been increasing, providing users with convenient ways to control their smart home devices, listen to music, and get useful information through voice commands.
There are Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri and there are other brands that provide compatibility with these OSs. Apart from these, there is Amazon Alexa Arabic for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets, and does the market need another smart speaker?
Yes, said Samer Mohamad, Regional Director for Yasmina MENA at Yango, the ride-hailing app owned and operated by Russian tech group Yandex.
“Amazon Alexa is a beautiful product, but we have different strategies. From our side, we built a human-like AI assistant that has been trained on the voices of local people and used the expertise of our team for the development of its software and hardware. For example, even when we look at the name of Yasmina – it is tailor-made for the region and more blended with Arabic culture. As for the tech side of things, people will be able to judge for themselves”, he said.
Meaning of Yasmina
Yasmina can understand multiple Arabic dialects and respond in GCC Arabic and English.
The meaning of Yasmina in Arabic means “A beautiful flower that shines” or a Jasmine flower. Yasmina is a girl’s name with Persian, French, and Arabic origins.
“We started working on the Yasmina product more than a year ago. The Arabic language model is ready, and we are fine-tuning the remaining parts. We believe in local tailor-made products and the persona should match the region,” he said.
There are more than twelve million distinct Arabic words and with various dialects, adding a layer of complexity to voice recognition technology compared to 170,000 words in English.
Even though Arabic is mainly subdivided into three main versions – Quranic or Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and Colloquial or Daily Arabic, it is estimated that over twenty-five dialects of Arabic are spoken globally.
Receives positive response
“We have been working with multiple copywriters from the region to create the assistant’s personality and studied what people are searching for and how they react to it. The Arabs in the GCC speak different dialects, so Yasmina understands different Arabic dialects and responds back in Khaleeji. Yasmina understands who is speaking to it, whether it is a child, a male, or a female. It responds accordingly and avoids turning on inappropriate content if the child is using it. It also speaks in a very human-like manner, leaving no one indifferent”, Mohamad said.
“When the product was announced and showcased at Gitex, we received a positive response from the visitors and the smiles on the faces of Khaleeji people gave us the boost and confidence to launch the product.”
There is no denying that smart assistants are the future, and technology will continue to drive and shift consumer behaviour.
In the West, people use smart speakers to search, advertise, content and for e-commerce.
Smart speaker demand
According to industry reports, the global demand for intelligent speakers is forecast to reach $41.40 billion by 2033, compared to $8.97 billion in 2023. In 2022, the market was worth $7.80 billion.
However, the smart speakers’ market is fragmented with multiple platforms, and this can lead to interoperability issues and limit the seamless integration of intelligent speakers with different smart home devices.
When asked whether standardisation and regulation are required to address these challenges, Mohammad said that he does not think, personally, any regulation is needed.
“What is needed is a common protocol for it to work and communicate with each other. You cannot force everyone to use the same operating system and the OS is the one that differentiates the product from others. Naturally, everyone is following the standards and the communications, and they came without forcing any regulations.”
“I don’t think any regulation is needed for smart speakers, same as the way for USB. No one said that you should use USB, but it came in handy because everything could interoperate,” he said.
Data privacy
Intelligent speaker manufacturers are expanding their ecosystems by partnering with third-party developers and integrating with a wide range of smart home devices such as lighting, thermostats, security systems, and home appliances, using a single voice-controlled device, and services.
According to Samer, in addition to the standard smart assistant capabilities of speaking and answering queries, Yasmina can integrate with major IoT and smart home devices that run on ZigBee or Matter protocols.
Matter is an open-source connectivity standard for smart home and Internet of Things devices while ZigBee protocol is an openly available wireless communication standard that is used to monitor and control home automation devices.
Another big issue with smart speakers is the collection and processing of user data to provide personalised experiences, which raises concerns about privacy and data security.
Reports have revealed that Amazon employees listen to Alexa voice recordings or random families having their conversations.
When asked Samer how Yasmina plays its part in data privacy, he said that they are fully committed and fully respect the privacy of the users and the regulations in the GCC.
Adoption to rise further
“We are assessing where the data should be stored in the GCC when the product hits the shelves in the first quarter of 2024.
“We are in talks with the regulators in the region to fine-tune the product,” Samer said.
“Our focus will be on the UAE and Saudi Arabian markets because they are the biggest in the GCC. We are receiving interest from established retailers and distributors from these markets for distributorship. As the infrastructure and resources are ready, we will enter other markets. It is just a matter of time,” Mohamad said.
The rising adoption of connected devices and the Internet of Things is likely to fuel the demand for smart speakers in the coming years and Mohammad added that the adoption of AI voice assistance is going up as the technology is getting advanced and people understand that AI can simplify their lives and help them in their daily routines.