By: Ahmed El Shamsy
Manama – Mubasher Exclusive: Ali Mohsen, CEO and Co-Founder of DOO, said the company is developing AI agents that can communicate in local dialects for customer service, with a particular focus on the Gulf dialects, to improve customer experience across various sectors including banking, fintech, education, and telecommunications.
Speaking to Mubasher.info on the sidelines of Fintech Forward 2026 in Bahrain, Mohsen said the platform provides AI agents trained and well-informed about the organization, its products, services, and terms. The agents operate through WhatsApp, live chat, and call centers to handle frequent inquiries and resolve issues that are possible to settle while redirecting all cases that require human intervention to the relevant employees.
Mohsen said DOO started in Bahrain before expanding into Saudi Arabia. The company has a team of around 30 people, with its operations headquarters located in Bahrain and its commercial operations are based in Riyadh. DOO serves organizations across several Gulf markets, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, with plans to enter the UAE market.
He added that AI should not be viewed as a complete replacement for employees, but as a tool that allows them to focus on more complex tasks, research, analysis, creativity, and building stronger customer relations instead of consuming their time answering repetitive questions.
Mohsen confirmed that competition in the AI market is intensifying as digital products become easier to develop. However, he stressed the importance of accumulated experience and how fast products can develop. The platform is updated weekly, and the company is currently in discussions regarding its next funding round to support the expansion plans.
How did you start DOO?
We started the company around three years ago with my brother, may he rest in peace. He passed away in a car accident last year.
We started from scratch without external investment for 18 months. Thankfully, we raised our first funding round about a year ago.
We began in Bahrain and gradually built trust with large organizations, including banks, companies, and educational institutions.
Today, we work with large companies and have started expanding into Saudi Arabia, given it is a bigger market. Our operations remain based in Bahrain, while our commercial operations are in Riyadh.
We now have a team of around 30 people, and our clients are spread across the Gulf.
Which markets do you currently serve? Do you plan to enter the UAE?
We operate in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait. We also have a small group of employees in the UAE, but we have not fully entered that market yet.
We hope to enter the UAE soon.
What is DOO’s business model, and how does the platform work?
We work with different organizations, including banks, fintech companies, educational institutions, telecommunications companies, and other businesses that interact with customers.
We serve these organizations through channels such as WhatsApp, live chat, and call centers. We build AI agents trained to know the organization well, besides its products, services, terms, and other relevant information.
These agents act as the first point of contact across these channels. They try to answer inquiries and resolve problems. If an agent cannot solve an issue, it redirects the case to a human employee to handle it.
One of our main priorities from the beginning was to make sure that customers would not feel they were talking to a robot. And to achieve this, we worked on the agents’ conversational style and the use of local dialects, particularly the Gulf Arabic, because that is our main market.
We also cover other dialects, including Egyptian and Levantine Arabic, alongside different Gulf dialects, such as Bahraini, Saudi Hijazi, and the dialect spoken in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
We started with text-based communication and later expanded into voice interactions through calls. Today, when customers contact a call center, an AI agent can respond in a natural conversational style.
How have crises and changes in the business environment affected AI adoption?
I believe organizations have become in need for effective, alternative digital channels to serve customers.
When companies cannot rely entirely on employees working in offices to respond to customers, it becomes essential to find alternatives that ensure the continuity of services.
In this context, AI has become a supporting solution. Some projects may have progressed slowly at first, but crises accelerated their implementation and launch because organizations needed greater support for customer service operations.
Is AI a threat to jobs or a tool that helps employees?
We look at it differently. AI helps employees develop their skills and focus on tasks that require human intellect and creativity, which cannot be reduced to executing commands automatically.
AI can execute commands and help formulate and organize ideas or conduct research. However, the ideas themselves and the content must still involve human contribution.
We see AI as an assisting tool. It takes care of routine tasks and repetitive questions that do not require deep thinking or creativity.
At several organizations we have worked with, employees who previously handled these tasks moved to other departments and more complex roles involving thinking, research, and discussion.
They also gained more time to build relationships with customers.
Previously, the focus was on solving the immediate problem. Now, employees can dedicate more time to communicating with customers and strengthening those relationships.
AI can complete transactions, but it does not replace the human relationship with a customer.
How has DOO evolved since its launch?
The idea started in January 2024, and we launched the platform in March of that year. However, the product at that time was different from the platform we have today.
Initially, we focused on what we called AI coaches: virtual coaches that provide advice and assistance to individuals, including entrepreneurs, managers, and teams within organizations.
We received feedback from users who liked the AI coaches but wanted them to communicate directly with their customers.
We received similar feedback from many users, which encouraged us to move toward customer-facing services and direct customer interactions.
Gradually, this became our entire focus, and we built a comprehensive customer experience ecosystem.
Today, DOO includes customer sentiment analysis and categorization based on customer type, importance, direction, and interests.
How do you view competition in the AI market, particularly as digital products become easier to build?
The world is experiencing major changes because of AI. It is not just providing information; it is making intelligence and analytical capabilities available to a much wider group of people.
Just as search engines made information easier to access, AI is giving individuals and companies greater capabilities for analysis and development.
One of the most important areas reflecting this change is digital product development. AI tools can now write thousands of lines of code within hours, which accelerates up software development and making it easier for people with ideas to turn them into products.
In the past, developing a digital product required significant skills and resources. Today, access to these tools is easier, which is positive for people with ideas and projects.
However, at the same time, competition has become more intense.
An employee or a small team might be able to build part of a product using AI, but completing, developing, and operating the entire product efficiently requires accumulated experience.
We have been working on this part for some time and currently we have the gained experience to build on. We believe that experience is an important competitive factor.
We also continue to improve our products, by updating the platform every week.
Are you worried that new AI tools could affect your ability to compete?
On the contrary, I am excited about the challenge. The current developments are making competition more bigger, and that motivates us to improve.
We have a team that enjoys challenges and is ready to face them.
The main challenge for me, however, is maintaining our pace of development and decision-making as the company grows. The larger a company becomes, the harder it can be to preserve fast decision-making and operational resilience.
We, therefore, try to maintain our way of working and our product development speed as we expand.
The development of AI also requires internal changes in terms of how we organize and combine teams, and how we integrate employees and AI agents into product development.
Previously, the human element played the biggest role in developing our product. Today, AI agents have become a key part of that process. We need to build a system that enables people and AI to work together effectively.
What are your plans for fundraising and expansion?
We are currently in discussions regarding our next funding round. Once it is completed, we will announce it.
Our main objective is to expand further across the Gulf, particularly in Saudi Arabia, which is the largest market in the region, while also entering the UAE.
We see several companies operating in the same field in Saudi Arabia, but we believe there is an opportunity to establish a leading position there.
Our ambition is to become the leading company in this field in the Saudi market.
What is the next stage in the development of your AI products?
We are continuously developing our products, but one of our main areas of focus is enabling AI agents to make decisions rather than simply provide answers.
Organizations no longer view AI only as a service or a technology. They want it to perform actual tasks and deliver clear results.
When an organization hires an employee, it expects that person to complete a specific task from beginning to end. We apply the same principle to AI agents by developing their capabilities so they can execute tasks and make appropriate decisions within their assigned scope.
This is one of the most important areas we are focusing on as we develop our products for the next stage.
