Nigeria's expanding technology ecosystem has gained another locally developed artificial intelligence platform, with a new solution placing spoken interaction at the centre of how people access knowledge and solve problems.
Software engineer Kingsley Udoma, alongside co-founders Jide Loye and Israel Akpan, has launched Theresa AI, a voice-first system designed to help users explore subjects, work through difficult questions and get personalised assistance through natural conversation.
The project builds on Udoma's experience in education technology. He previously created NounPaddi, an EdTech platform that now serves more than 1,600 students at the National Open University of Nigeria, Lagos.
His experience with learners helped shape a different approach to AI. Udoma had repeatedly encountered people who could read the same explanation several times without fully grasping what it meant. To him, the challenge was not a shortage of information but the absence of an interactive guide capable of responding to a person's specific difficulty.
That thinking became the foundation for Theresa AI. Instead of requiring users to search through pages of material, the platform allows them to speak directly to the system and receive spoken responses. Typing is also available for users who prefer it.
Theresa is designed to handle practical and academic challenges, including complex areas such as calculus and financial modelling. As it works through a problem, it can generate diagrams and flowcharts on screen, creating an experience closer to having someone explain a difficult concept on a whiteboard.
The system can also adjust its approach when a user is struggling. Rather than simply repeating an answer, it is designed to slow down and explain the subject from another angle when it detects confusion in the interaction.
Its language capabilities further widens the platform's reach. Loye said Theresa can understand and respond in English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, French and Spanish.
“Beyond English, Theresa understands and responds in Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, French, and Spanish, so help is not locked behind a single language,” Loye said.
Akpan said the platform is already live and undergoing testing, while the team works towards a rollout across Nigeria.
The ambition, he explained, is closely tied to accessibility. Udoma wants people to have access to personalised assistance whenever they need it, particularly in situations where one-on-one support may be difficult to obtain.
Theresa AI is entering a Nigerian AI market that has expanded considerably in recent years. Over the past two years, around half a dozen prominent independent creators, alongside more than 120 AI ventures, have introduced conversational or localised large language models and AI agents inspired by ChatGPT.
With Theresa, Udoma, Loye and Akpan are bringing another Nigerian-built product into that expanding field, with an emphasis on conversation, multilingual access and guided problem-solving.
For the team, the proposition is straightforward: technology should not only provide information; it should make it easier for people to understand and use it.
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