ACCRA, Ghana — For millions of Ghanaians without a smartphone or reliable internet access, artificial intelligence has remained out of reach. A new service launched this week aims to close that gap using a much older piece of technology: the phone call.
Viamo, a Canada-based digital nonprofit that got its start in Ghana in 2012, has launched a toll-free voice platform called 231, built in partnership with the telecom giant MTN.
The service lets anyone with a basic mobile phone dial in and get information — or talk to an AI system — in Twi, Ewe, Hausa, Dagbani, Ga or English.
No app. No data plan. No smartphone.
A Different Approach to Digital Inclusion
Most efforts to expand access to digital services and AI tools assume a baseline: a smartphone, a data connection, comfort navigating an app or website. That leaves out a large share of the population in countries like Ghana, where smartphone and internet penetration remain far from universal.
Viamo’s approach sidesteps the problem entirely. The 231 platform runs on interactive voice response technology layered with what the company calls offline AI — meaning the system can hold a natural spoken conversation without requiring the caller to have any internet connectivity at all.
Users dial in, ask a question out loud, and receive a spoken answer generated by Viamo’s AI tool, known as Ask Viamo Anything, or AVA. Organizations — government agencies, health providers, nonprofits — can plug their own vetted content into the system, tailoring it for uses like health guidance, farming advice, or financial literacy.
Built on Infrastructure That Already Exists
The technical premise is straightforward: rather than build new digital infrastructure, Viamo is repurposing something already nearly universal — the mobile phone network.
Ghana is the fourth country where Viamo has launched this kind of platform with MTN, following earlier rollouts in Liberia, Zambia and Rwanda. A Nigeria launch is planned for 2027. Viamo says it now operates in 23 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with offline AI tools deployed in 13 of them, spanning 10 languages.
Dr. Nii Lante Heward-Mills, Viamo’s country director for Ghana and Liberia, framed the launch as a homecoming of sorts. The company’s core idea — using ordinary phone technology to spread information — was born in Ghana more than a decade ago before expanding abroad.
“231 brings that journey home,” he said, describing the platform as infrastructure that governments, nonprofits and private companies can build on to reach people more inclusively.
Why Voice, Why Now
The launch arrives as AI companies and investors have largely focused on text- and app-based tools aimed at smartphone users. Voice-based, offline systems occupy a smaller, less-discussed corner of the AI landscape — but one with outsized relevance in regions where basic phones still dominate.
Speaking at the launch event, held at the Google AI Community Centre in Accra, Edmond Moukala, UNESCO’s country representative in Ghana, argued that the stakes go beyond convenience.
“Conversational AI is not a luxury for the elite; it is a lifeline for the underserved,” he said.
The event also included a panel on inclusive AI innovation, featuring speakers from the tech firm MNotify, the data company AyaData, the Ghana Health Service and Academic City University.
What Comes Next
Beyond serving as an information channel, Viamo says the AVA system can act as a feedback loop for the organizations that use it — surfacing the actual questions communities are asking, which can help identify gaps in existing programs or services.
The company is now recruiting partners to build on the platform, pointing to potential uses in agricultural advisory services, health communication, education, research, financial literacy campaigns and citizen engagement efforts.
Whether the platform gains meaningful traction will depend on the answer to a familiar question in global development: not whether the technology works, but whether organizations actually adopt it and fund the programs built on top of it. Viamo’s earlier rollouts in Liberia, Zambia and Rwanda offer some indication of the model’s staying power, though the company has not disclosed usage figures for those platforms.
For now, 231 represents a bet that the most effective way to bring AI to underserved populations isn’t a better app — it’s a phone call.
