WhatsApp's 'Bol Behen' Chatbot is now available in India to assist adolescent girls and young women with their concerns

WhatsApp announced a collaboration with Girl Effect on Wednesday to debut the artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbot 'Bol Behen' (colloquial Hindi for 'Speak, Sister') in India to assist teenage girls and young women with general health and sexual wellbeing issues and questions.

In a self-paced chat experience on the instant messaging app, the Hinglish language chatbot is aimed to give material on issues such as sexuality, relationships, and reproductive health. Users can also pose their own questions on a variety of subjects.

Users may contact the Bol Behen chatbot by sending a WhatsApp message to +91-7304496601 or viewing its profile on the web.

The new chatbot, according to the Facebook-owned messaging service, is aimed at adolescent girls and young women in India's Hindi belt, who often use low-end devices with inadequate Internet access.

Bol Behen intends to leverage WhatsApp's architecture to gain a better grasp of the emotion of the messages it receives in order to reply to users more precisely.

It is also expected to reach millions of girls across India in the future, answering their health-related questions and connecting them to authorised providers.

Girl Effect introduced the Bol Behen chatbot on Facebook Messenger in India for the first time in 2020. It is stated that it has grown to over 100,000 discussions and over 1.6 million messages received.

The chatbot is modelled after Girl Effect's first chatbot, Big Sis, which was introduced in South Africa to provide nonjudgmental advise on themes such as sexual health and relationships.

“WhatsApp's technology offers us the opportunity to forge closer links between girls and the health services they need, providing content that solves her concerns and encourages her to access healthcare, through connection with curated and vetted providers,” Kanishk Kabiraj, Girl Effect Country Lead for India, said in a prepared statement.  “This will help us to deliver more seamless, personalised healthcare journeys in the future — for example, leading to girls booking appointments, getting reminders and sharing feedback all within Bol Behen.”

Girl Effect uses chatbots, chat programmes, and TV plays to reach girls and young women in Africa and Asia with information on their bodies and health.

It also operates the internet brand Chhaa Jaa in India, which caters to lower-income adolescent females across the Hindi belt. It debuted in 2019 and has reached over 10 million girls.

Chatbots are becoming more popular on WhatsApp in order to provide users with automated, human-like discussions. The app has included chatbots to assist people get COVID-19 immunizations, battle pollution, and even book cab trips.

WhatsApp now has over 400 million users in the nation, which businesses, government entities, and charities may employ to fulfil their various goals and aims through chatbots.