The technology non-profit Meedan has officially launched Suwali, an AI-powered chatbot designed to help newsrooms and civil society groups bridge the gap between static reporting and active community engagement.
The tool was unveiled on Tuesday at the 2026 Skoll World Forum in Oxford. Developed over 18 months of engineering and design, Suwali is the product of a global collaboration involving partners in journalism and human rights, including the Egyptian independent outlet Al Manassa.
While the tool is now officially “introduced to the world,” it is not yet live for Al Manassa’s general audience. The platform is currently serving as a key development and pilot partner, testing the bot’s capabilities to ensure it meets the rigorous demands of independent journalism before a wider public rollout expected by the end of the year.
Moving beyond the “visit”
For Al Manassa, the partnership represents a strategic shift toward a more interactive model of public service. In a media landscape where traditional articles can struggle to address the specific, evolving questions of a digital audience, the chatbot offers a direct, multilingual dialogue grounded in verified facts.
Nora Younis, the editor-in-chief of Al Manassa, noted at the launch that Suwali provides a vital pathway for deepening the outlet’s core asset: its interaction with its readers.
“Having an engaged community is the backbone of our financial sustainability plans,” Younis said. “While the website receives 800,000 visits per month, mostly from Egypt, we want to have loyal and engaged users, not just visitors.”
A decade of data vs. propaganda
The tool allows organizations to transform their archives into a searchable, interactive knowledge base. By asking direct questions about specific events or social issues, users can bypass the hunt through years of reports. Crucially, the system draws answers exclusively from the organization’s own data and research, a measure designed to prevent the “hallucinations” or factual errors common in general-purpose AI models.
For Younis, the stakes are as much about narrative as they are about technology. By making Al Manassa’s decade-long body of work accessible through a simple chat interface, she hopes to offer a narrative of the country that exists outside of official channels.
“It offers a more comprehensive picture of the real Egypt that we have worked so hard to cover,” she said, “far from the government propaganda.”
The road to public release
Meedan, which specializes in digital tools for global media challenges, designed Suwali to support sectors ranging from public health to civic participation.
Al Manassa is among a select group of partners from Egypt, Lebanon, India, and the United States currently refining the tool. These pilot phases are providing the feedback necessary to adjust the software for real-world newsroom needs, ensuring that when the “chat” button finally appears for the public, it delivers more than just automated responses—it delivers accountability.
