BudgIT, Nigeria’s leading civic-tech organization, is preparing to launch what could become one of its most groundbreaking tools to date: Bimi, an AI-powered civic assistant designed to make public data accessible to millions of Nigerians through natural conversation.

At the center of this innovation is Kolawole Egbeyemi, BudgIT’s recently appointed Chief Innovation Officer, who sat down with reporters to share exclusive insights on Bimi’s upcoming launch and its potential to transform citizen engagement.

“Bimi is more than just a chatbot,” Egbeyemi said. “It’s a civic companion that speaks your language, understands your questions, and helps you make sense of how public resources are being spent.”

Bimi, short for “Budget Information Made Interactive,” is designed to function as a real-time virtual assistant that responds to user questions about government budgets, state allocations, project performance, and demographic data. Citizens will be able to engage Bimi through WhatsApp and web platforms, asking everyday questions like “How much was budgeted for education in Lagos?” or “Who is responsible for a project in my community?”

The goal, according to Egbeyemi, is to “take the complexity out of civic data” and offer a personalized, accessible experience that empowers citizens to ask questions and get answers that matter to their lives.

Bimi is powered by a fine-tuned large language model trained on official public datasets, including federal and state budgets, project tracking databases, and census records. It will also be equipped to provide contextual explanations for fiscal concepts, helping bridge the gap between technical data and public understanding.

“We’ve spent the last decade opening up government data,” Egbeyemi explained. “But access isn’t enough. If data doesn’t speak the people’s language, it’s as good as locked. Bimi is our attempt to unlock that data for everyone.”

Early tests have shown that Bimi is not only accurate but surprisingly intuitive. BudgITengineers say the AI can detect user sentiment, guide confused users to helpful information, and provide data visualizations on request. The team is also working on incorporating local languages and voice integration to reach users with low literacy and in rural areas.

Egbeyemi emphasized that the launch of Bimi is part of a larger strategic vision to embed artificial intelligence into public accountability frameworks. BudgIT is already piloting blockchain and Web3 tools to track project funds and reduce corruption in public spending. Bimi, he said, will serve as a “frontline interface” between citizens and these larger systems of civic transparency.

“Imagine if every Nigerian, no matter where they live, had a pocket-sized assistant they could talk to about their rights, their roads, their budgets. That’s the vision,” he said.

Bimi is currently in beta testing with selected civil society organizations and is expected to launch publicly later this quarter. Once live, it will be available for free and accessible on both desktop and mobile platforms.

With this move, BudgIT is positioning itself as a global leader in civic AI, building solutions that not only inform but also empower.