Africa-Press – Angola. Across Africa, where a multitude of languages are spoken, many people are excluded from services simply because digital platforms are predominantly available in a few global languages. For a large number of individuals who do not speak those languages, this means being shut out of essential services.
Bolthale AI, a startup based in South Africa that took part in the Google for Startups Accelerator: South Africa, aims to address this issue. The team is developing AI-powered natural language processing tools that enable businesses to connect with their customers in languages they understand and trust.
We spoke with the founder, Thapelo Nthite, to gain insight into how they are using AI to create a more inclusive environment.
Our mission is to ensure that people can fully participate in the economies and societies to which they belong. Despite the ongoing digital transformation across Africa, linguistic inclusion remains a significant challenge. For instance, in South Africa, it’s impossible to register a business or open a bank account online if you don’t understand English. People are left behind.
I witnessed this first-hand when my grandmother asked me to load prepaid airtime onto her phone. She asked in Setswana, the language we both speak, but she couldn’t do it herself because the voucher was written in English and her phone was set to English. The barrier wasn’t her inability to express her needs clearly, but rather the fact that the language made the process inaccessible to her. This experience made me realize that many people like her face difficulty doing basic tasks necessary to navigate the digital world.
My co-founders and I come from a technical background; we studied electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town and were already exploring technology that enables people to interact with computer systems using natural language. Transitioning to AI was a natural step for us.
However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. When we first started, AI wasn’t widely known — we had to educate people about the technology, show them how it worked, and earn their trust. At the time, corporations didn’t have AI strategies, and working with us meant taking a risk. That’s changed significantly since the rise of GenAI. As more people began using large language models in their daily lives, this shift in mindset has helped us get our solutions adopted.
Our business centers on core AI models and the customer engagement platforms built on top of them. We offer these models to other organizations and innovators to integrate into their own solutions because we recognize that the technology can be applied far beyond our focus areas — for example, in generating audio books or language learning. We provide an API to empower others, in addition to a SaaS platform.
Furthermore, one of the most valuable aspects of our partnership with Google for Startups has been our access to external AI tools to help run our business. For example, I use Gemini regularly for various tasks, with at least five Gems serving different purposes — one of which I call ‘Mothusi’ (meaning assistant in Setswana), which acts as my personal assistant. We also rely on coding assistants, which have accelerated our processes and enhanced our code reviews.
AI is advancing rapidly, so we prioritize ongoing upskilling for our teams. One of the initiatives we’ve implemented is “Speaky Wednesday,” where team members present or share something valuable to the business, such as new tools, to keep AI integrated into the way we work.
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