WhatsApp's 'Bol Behen' Chatbot will help adolescent girls, young women with health-related concerns

Popular instant messaging app WhatsApp has announced a new chatbot in India in collaboration with non-profit Girl Effect. The AI-based chatbot, named "Bol Behen" will help adolescent girls and young women with concerns regarding their general health and sexual wellbeing.

The Chatbot will be in both Hindi and English (Hinglish) and is designed to provide content on topics like relationships, sexuality, and reproductive health. The chatbot also allows users to ask their own questions on different topics. The "Bol Behen" (Speak, sister in English) chatbot can be accessed with a phone number or via an invite link on the web.

Users can access the chatbot by simply sending a "Hi" to the number +91-730449661 on WhatsApp or by visiting the invite link (https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=917304496601&text&app_absent=0).

WhatsApp said that the new chatbot is targeted at adolescent girls and young women in the Hindi belt of India who typically use lower-end smartphones with a slower or limited internet bandwidth.

Using WhatsApp's framework, Bol Behen is aimed to have an improved understanding of the sentiment of the messages that it receives, in order to respond to users' queries more precisely.

The chatbot is expected to reach millions of girls across India to clear their doubts regarding their health and concerns and connect them to vetter services.

Now, Bol Behen chatbot is not new. It was first launched by the nonprofit back in 2020 on Facebook Messenger in India. The chatbot on Facebook Messenger is claimed to have reached 100,000 conversations with over 1.6 million messages being circulated.

"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 statement.

Chatbots on WhatsApp have proved to be a useful tool in the past. It responds to WhatsApp users with automated messages. In the past, WhatsApp has added chatbots to help users with COVID-19 resources and vaccines.