Intron, a voice technology platform focused on Africa, has launched Sahara, a suite of speech recognition and text-to-speech AI models designed specifically for African voices and accents, aiming to improve justice, healthcare, and customer service across the continent.

The company is expanding its dataset to over 30,000 hours of speech in more than 64 languages to train next-generation models that will support speech recognition and translation in 20 African languages, including Swahili, Hausa, and Zulu.

Intron is developing advanced models, Sahara-Titan and Sahara-Primus, to enhance transcription and speech generation capabilities across multiple African languages.

The Ogun State Judiciary in Nigeria has adopted Sahara to streamline court proceedings, significantly reducing note-taking time from over four hours to just two or three hours, allowing judges to focus more on the dialogue.

Rwanda's Ministry of Health is utilizing Intron's technology to facilitate the national rollout of electronic medical records, simplifying documentation for healthcare professionals through voice commands and multilingual support.

C-Care, Uganda's largest private hospital network, has implemented Sahara to minimize patient wait times and reduce documentation errors across its facilities.

Intron's technology was initially developed for challenging environments, such as busy hospital wards, and has since proven effective in various sectors, including judiciary and digital finance.

CEO Tobi Olatunji emphasizes Intron's mission to ensure no community is left behind by technology, advocating for the growth of African-built AI solutions to counter global tech biases.

Following a $1.6 million pre-seed funding round in 2024, Intron is scaling its research and development efforts to meet the growing demand across African markets and has established partnerships with various organizations.

In the digital finance sector, Intron's Sahara CX Intelligence is enhancing customer service for Branch International by powering conversational voice agents, improving client engagement after hours.

In 2023, a judge in Katsina State tested Intron's system for courtroom transcription and found it effective in capturing legal conversations, leading to its adoption in courtroom settings.

Intron aims to provide tailored speech recognition and text-to-speech solutions that address local needs in Africa, where larger platforms may not be suitable.