iFLYTEK’s GuideX Goes Live in Kenya at Safaricom’s Experiential Innovation Center

NAIROBI — May 26, 2026 — iFLYTEK’s GuideX virtual guide solution has gone live in Kenya, deployed at the Safaricom Experiential Innovation Center (SEIC) — the flagship showroom of Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telecommunications operator.

The deployment marks GuideX’s first official deployment in Africa and its first entry into a core showcase environment for an African telecom operator. Safaricom, the company behind M-PESA, is headquartered in Nairobi, a city widely known as Africa’s “Silicon Savannah”. As Safaricom’s primary window for presenting its business portfolio and digital capabilities, the SEIC places GuideX at the center of one of Africa’s most prominent digital-economy stages.

An immersive AI experience built for the showroom

As a key component of the SEIC overall smart-showroom solution, GuideX serves as an AI host, intelligent guide, and brand-interaction interface. It provides visitors with a multimodal, one-stop reception and interaction covering Safaricom’s corporate introduction, core business showcases, financial reports, and showroom navigation.

Unlike standardized digital-human displays, telecom scenarios involve complex business systems, specialized terminology, and large volumes of real-time information. The solution is built on a “Digital Human + AI Agent + Large Language Model + Knowledge Base” architecture, integrating speech recognition and synthesis, natural-language understanding, and digital-human driving capabilities to deliver real-time Q&A and intelligent narration.

Localization: an AI that understands both the industry and the local market

To address the distinct characteristics of the East African market and the telecom industry, the project team carried out in-depth localization across two dimensions. First, it built a comprehensive knowledge base around Safaricom’s core assets — including its communications business, M-PESA financial ecosystem, enterprise services, and financial-report content — improving the digital human’s ability to explain and respond in specialized business scenarios.

Second, beyond native English interaction, the system was specifically optimized for telecom terminology, financial-report abbreviations, and local East African business expressions, enabling the AI assistant to genuinely understand both the industry and the local context.

The localization capabilities were recognized directly by the client. Andrew Masila, Research, Development and Innovation Lead at Safaricom, said: “It was truly a great experience, very impressive. We see huge potential in this direction. We’re looking forward to accelerating and moving into the next phase of real business digital transformation.”

In areas such as visitor guidance, basic enquiry handling, and business narration, GuideX has the potential to improve service efficiency and user experience while easing staffing pressure and strengthening brand presentation.

The Kenya project lays a foundation for GuideX’s further expansion into African telecom operators, smart showrooms, and smart-service markets. Going forward, GuideX will further integrate Safaricom’s business systems, with customized upgrades aligned to the brand, progressively enabling operator business integration and on-the-ground deployment, while continuing to explore innovative applications of AI Agents within operator service systems.

GuideX has already been deployed in Hong Kong (China), Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Latin America. As AI Agent technologies move into deeper industry applications, iFLYTEK is accelerating the adoption of digital humans, AI assistants, and intelligent interaction technologies across telecom operators, public services, and enterprise-service scenarios worldwide.