Ask Aunty bridges “taboo’’ conversations in the Middle East
Learn how Raseef22 is developing an AI-powered chatbot that enables Arabic speakers to access accurate information on sexual and reproductive health and rights
Early concept sketch of Ask Aunty character.
By: Rokaya Kamel
It all started with the numbers.
At Raseef22, we’ve seen a consistent rise in traffic to our articles on sexual and reproductive health (SRHR) and LGBTQ+ issues. In fact, 32% of all organic clicks in the last year were SRHR-related. The data was clear: young Arabic speakers are actively looking for answers, often to questions they don’t feel safe asking anyone else. This wasn’t just traffic. This was a signal.
At the same time, we know how broken the ecosystem is when it comes to accessible, accurate, and judgment-free SRHR information in the Middle East.
Misinformation is everywhere, trusted resources in Arabic are hard to find. And even when information exists, it's often dry, clinical, or alienating.
So we asked ourselves: what if we built a tool that didn’t just deliver information, but made you feel seen?
That’s how Ask Aunty was born.
What is Ask Aunty?
A chatbot, yes, but not your average one. We imagined a glamorous 57-year-old Egyptian woman, with a sharp tongue, and a deep well of empathy. Someone you trust. Someone who speaks your language, emotionally and culturally. Someone who understands your fears, your shame, and your curiosity, and never judges you for it.
Aunty is built to answer your real questions, with real care. She speaks in warm, everyday Egyptian Arabic. She talks about periods, consent, STIs, birth control, pleasure, identity, relationships, and all the things we’re taught to whisper, if we even speak about it at all.
We trained the chatbot on content we already had at Raseef22, as well as trusted materials from regional partners. The chatbot might be powered by AI, but it’s fueled by years of feminist storytelling, reporting, and knowledge-sharing.
The goal? To break the silence around these “taboo” subjects and give young people in the region the tools to make informed, safe, and confident decisions about their rights, bodies and relationships.
The project was made possible with the support of the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge supported by Google News Initiative, which helped us take our idea from concept to creation.
How it works
We’re currently in the beta phase, testing Ask Aunty to make sure she’s helpful, safe, and easy to talk to. We started building her using Delphi AI, but we’re still in the process of figuring out the right tool for what we need.
But what happens if Aunty doesn’t know the answer? If the question falls outside her current knowledge base, sShe says so with honesty instead of guessing, and gently redirects users to a trusted and fact checked source, ensuring users still receive support and guidance, even when Aunty doesn’t have all the answers. After all, she’s still educating herself too.
The challenges
Building any chatbot comes with challenges, but creating Ask Aunty, a character as bold and warm as her name suggests, was a whole different task.
The biggest hurdle? Tone. Most of our content was written in Modern Standard Arabic, but Aunty had to speak in colloquial Egyptian, playful, engaging, and human.
As our AI consultant Fawzi Ammache put it: “We needed her to sound casual but still professional. The solution was a custom layer of sample responses and prompts that helped the bot feel more real.”
And of course, we faced the ongoing challenge of working in a language most AI models still don’t fully support. While Ammache had built chatbots before, this was his first time working in Arabic.
“I was a bit worried at first,” he said. “But once we found the right tool and tested it with real dialogue, it worked better than expected. It shows how much large language models are improving in languages beyond English.”
This wasn’t our first time facing this challenge. During our Raseef Aal Samaa project, which also involved dialect adaptation in audio formats, we ran into similar hurdles. But with Ask Aunty, the stakes felt higher. Her credibility, accessibility, and warmth depended on getting the tone exactly right.
We also had to set firm boundaries for the AI. If she didn’t know something? She had to say so. If the question required medical advice or urgent help? She had to point users to trusted resources, not guess.
Every word matters. Every tone shift could make or break the experience.
Next step?
Ask Aunty will soon be available on both the web and mobile app versions of the Raseef22 platform, so users can talk to her wherever they are, whenever they need her.
After that, we’re taking it one step further: voice interaction.
Not everyone wants to type, some want to speak. And we’re working on giving Aunty a voice of her own. A voice that will start a more personal, intimate, and accessible conversation.
In a region where SRHR information is often out of reach, or just out of touch, she brings the conversation back to the people. Loud, proud, and unapologetically Arab, because everyone deserves access to knowledge, and everyone deserves an Aunty like this one.
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This article is part of a series providing updates from 35 grantees on the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge, supported by the Google News Initiative. Click here to read other articles from our grantees.