Yandex Uzbekistan Launches Alisa with Uzbek Language Support

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Yandex Uzbekistan has introduced an updated version of its virtual assistant Alisa, now available in the Uzbek language on smart speakers. From now on, users can interact with the assistant in both Uzbek and Russian, with the technology automatically adapting to the speaker’s language.

The new version is powered by Yandex’s large language model, fine-tuned with local data. Professional editors, linguists, and more than 100 data annotation specialists contributed to the project.

For testing, 300 users from 13 regions of Uzbekistan were engaged over several months, asking Alisa questions in Uzbek. This helped significantly improve speech recognition and ensure more natural conversations.

In addition, the assistant can engage in dialogue and entertain children. For example, one can ask, “Alisa, O‘zbekistonda eng mashhur shoirlar kimlar?” (“Alisa, who are the most famous poets in Uzbekistan?”), and hear a story about renowned Uzbek poets. Or say, “Alisa, o‘zbek ertaklarini yoq” (“Alisa, play Uzbek fairy tales”), and the speaker will launch a playlist of national folk tales.

According to Ulugbek Sharipov, Alisa’s product manager at Yandex Uzbekistan, the launch of the bilingual assistant marks a major milestone for the company:

“To make Alisa speak Uzbek, we trained the language model on local data. Now that our AI assistant understands and recognizes Uzbek commands and questions, it will be able to assist users even more effectively in their daily lives.”

Experts highlight that the localization of Alisa represents an important step in the development of digital services in the native language and will broaden access to modern technologies for users across Uzbekistan.