Esdiac Unveils AI-Powered Business Calling Platform, Targets Low Rates For Int’l, Local Calls

Esdiac Global Systems Limited has unveiled plans to deepen its penetration of Nigeria’s business telecommunications market with an app-to-phone platform that combines artificial intelligence (AI)-powered customer service with lower calling costs and transparent billing.

The company said its business-focused solution would enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as large organisations, to automate customer interactions, manage incoming calls and reduce the cost of communicating with customers without necessarily expanding their human support teams.

The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Esdiac, Austin Ugbebor, disclosed this on Friday in Abuja during the company’s Media Parley, Stakeholders Engagement and App Launch, where he outlined the technology’s potential to address gaps in conventional internet-based communication platforms.

Ugbebor explained that the platform was developed to complement existing communication applications rather than compete directly with platforms such as WhatsApp and Messenger, stressing that its distinctive feature was the ability to connect users to regular telephone numbers.

“Esdiac is a quasi-softphone, which means with the app, you can call anybody that does not even have the app. The person does not even need to have a smartphone. We are a phone within a phone,” he said.

He explained that the company was positioning the technology as a more accessible and cost-conscious communication option for individuals and businesses seeking alternatives to conventional international and domestic calling services.

Providing details of the business application, the company’s Lead Infrastructure and Security Engineer, Daramola Olugbenga, said the platform had two major offerings: a regular calling application for individual users and a business version integrated with AI-powered agents.

He said the AI feature was designed to help businesses manage customer calls, particularly when human customer service representatives were unavailable or occupied with other responsibilities.

“It is not just the normal IVR. It is not just a recording. It is interactive. You have a conversation, you talk and you get feedback from the agent,” he said.

He said the innovation could help businesses improve customer engagement and reduce the pressure on human operators by allowing AI agents to handle routine enquiries and other customer interactions.

On the platform’s technical capacity, Olugbenga said its infrastructure had been designed to accommodate up to one million concurrent calls, while the company reported a call completion rate of more than 90 per cent.

He also claimed that the platform delivers clear voice quality even under poor data connectivity conditions, although the company did not provide independent test results to substantiate the performance figures.

Ugbebor argued that some existing internet-based calling services impose additional charges, including storage and connectivity fees, which users may not readily notice when purchasing or using calling credits.

He said Esdiac’s billing structure was designed to ensure that customers were charged for the services they actually used, without undisclosed deductions or recurring charges on unused balances.

“If you pick up any other platform and you make a call, once you press call, the first dial, they charge you a hidden fee that you don’t see. Esdiac, we don’t do that,” he said.

He maintained that Esdiac does not impose such deductions and that customers’ unused credits remain available indefinitely.

“If you have credit today, your money is still there even after two years,” he said.

To illustrate his point, Ugbebor recounted the experience of a user in London who returned to the platform after 18 months and found that his 50 units of credit remained intact despite the company’s migration to a more robust backend infrastructure.

On regulatory compliance and data protection, Ugbebor said Esdiac, which was first released in 2016, had obtained licences from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

According to him, Nigerian customer data are stored and processed locally, while access to the platform is authenticated through users’ SIM cards.

“We authenticate your access into the platform using the SIM and we ride on our own backbone, which is mainly here in Nigeria and also in the US,” he said.

The company maintained that its infrastructure was designed to prevent Nigerian users’ local data from being transmitted outside the country.

Olugbenga said the launch represented part of a broader strategy to introduce more business-oriented telecommunications products that would make advanced communication technologies more affordable and accessible to Nigerian enterprises.

He said the company intended to expand its offerings to address the communication and operational needs of businesses, particularly those seeking to improve customer service delivery through automation.

The development comes as businesses increasingly explore digital tools to manage customer relationships, improve operational efficiency and contain costs.

For Esdiac, the challenge will be translating its promised cost savings, AI capabilities and infrastructure capacity into measurable benefits that can attract and retain business customers in Nigeria’s increasingly competitive telecommunications market.

Chdi Ugwu is a correspondent with Independent Newspapers.

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