Holi AI: why Wales needs a Welsh-first AI assistant
· 7 min read · AI, Welsh, Holi
Most LLMs treat Welsh as an afterthought. Here's how Holi AI changes that - and what it means for Welsh businesses serving customers in Cymraeg.
The Welsh-language AI gap
Ask ChatGPT a complex question in Cymraeg and you'll usually get a serviceable answer - but ask it to handle a customer-service conversation about your specific product, with the formal/informal register switching that real Welsh speakers use, and the cracks show fast. Mutations get mangled, dialect choices flatten, and the model quietly mistranslates idioms it has never seen in training data.
This isn't malicious - it's a data problem. Cymraeg makes up well under 0.1% of the public web, so even the largest models have only a thin slice of authentic Welsh to learn from.
Holi AI is our answer to that gap.
What Holi AI actually is
Holi AI is a customer-service chatbot built on top of Google's Gemini 2.5 and OpenAI's GPT-5 models, with three Welsh-specific layers on top:
- A Welsh-first system prompt that locks the model into Cymraeg by default, with explicit register controls (ffurfiol/anffurfiol)
- A constrained knowledge base - Holi only answers questions about *your* business, your products, your hours, your policies. It will never go off-topic, recommend a competitor, or invent a refund policy you didn't write.
- Native dialect handling - Holi recognises whether your customer is writing in southern or northern Welsh patterns and matches them where appropriate.
You can read the productisation story in our launch post.
Why this matters for Welsh businesses
Around 538,000 people speak Welsh daily. For thousands of small businesses across Wales - from cafés in Caernarfon to design studios in Cardiff - serving those customers in their first language is both a legal duty (under the Welsh Language Standards) and a commercial advantage.
Until now, the only realistic options were:
- Hire a Welsh-speaking customer service rep (expensive, hard to find)
- Use Google Translate on incoming messages (clunky, error-prone)
- Reply in English only (alienates Welsh-speaking customers)
Holi AI gives you a fourth option: an always-on, native-Welsh first responder that triages messages, answers FAQs, and hands off to a human only when the conversation needs one.
How Holi is constrained
We deliberately limit what Holi can do, because an AI that goes off-script is worse than no AI at all. Specifically, Holi:
- Will refuse to discuss anything outside your knowledge base
- Will never quote a price or policy you haven't entered
- Will hand off to a human inbox the moment a customer mentions a complaint, refund, or threat
- Logs every conversation for review in your dashboard
- Respects GDPR by anonymising any personal data customers paste in
Try it
Holi AI is part of the Pro tier on linc.cymru. Set up takes about ten minutes - you paste your FAQs, set a tone of voice, choose escalation triggers, and Holi appears as a floating chat button on your public profile.
Explore Holi AI or view pricing.
Holi AI: pam fod angen AI Cymraeg-yn-gyntaf ar Gymru
Mae'r rhan fwyaf o LLMau yn trin Cymraeg fel ôl-ystyriaeth. Dyma sut mae Holi AI yn newid hynny - a beth mae'n ei olygu i fusnesau Cymreig.
Y bwlch AI Cymraeg
Gofyn cwestiwn cymhleth i ChatGPT yn Gymraeg ac fel arfer fe gei di ateb defnyddiol - ond gofyn iddo ymdrin â sgwrs gwasanaeth cwsmer am dy gynnyrch penodol di, gyda'r newid rhwng ffurfiol ac anffurfiol mae siaradwyr Cymraeg gwirioneddol yn ei ddefnyddio, ac mae'r craciau'n dangos yn gyflym.
Nid yw hyn yn faleisus - mae'n broblem ddata. Mae Cymraeg yn ffurfio llawer llai na 0.1% o'r we gyhoeddus.
Holi AI yw ein hateb i'r bwlch hwnnw.
Beth yw Holi AI mewn gwirionedd
Mae Holi AI yn sgwrsfot gwasanaeth cwsmer wedi'i adeiladu ar ben modelau Gemini 2.5 Google a GPT-5 OpenAI, gyda thair haen Cymraeg-benodol ar ben:
- Prompt system Cymraeg-yn-gyntaf sy'n cloi'r model i mewn i Gymraeg yn ddiofyn
- Sylfaen wybodaeth gyfyngedig - mae Holi ond yn ateb cwestiynau am *dy* fusnes di
- Trin tafodieithoedd brodorol - mae Holi yn adnabod a yw dy gwsmer yn ysgrifennu ym mhatrymau de neu ogledd Cymru
Pam mae hyn yn bwysig i fusnesau Cymreig
Mae tua 538,000 o bobl yn siarad Cymraeg yn ddyddiol. I filoedd o fusnesau bach ledled Cymru, mae gwasanaethu'r cwsmeriaid hynny yn eu hiaith gyntaf yn fantais fasnachol.
Sut mae Holi yn cael ei gyfyngu
- Bydd yn gwrthod trafod unrhyw beth y tu allan i'th sylfaen wybodaeth
- Ni fydd byth yn dyfynnu pris neu bolisi nad wyt wedi'i nodi
- Bydd yn trosglwyddo i flwch derbyn dynol pan fydd cwsmer yn sôn am gwyn
- Mae'n cofnodi pob sgwrs i'w hadolygu
Rho gynnig arno
Mae Holi AI yn rhan o'r haen Busnes ar linc.cymru. Archwilio Holi AI neu gweld prisiau.