Agora and FPT Launch Regional AI Partnership Targeting Southeast Asia’s Banking and Financial Institutions
Rhea-AI Summary
Agora (NASDAQ: API) and FPT announced a strategic partnership on Feb 24, 2026 to bring real-time conversational AI and ultra-low-latency communications to banking and financial institutions across Southeast Asia.
The collaboration pairs Agora’s Convo AI and RTC with FPT’s enterprise AI and regional integration to support multilingual virtual assistants, contact centers, and secure, compliant omnichannel interactions.
Positive
- Sacombank call handling capacity +58% after AI Voice Agent deployment
- Supports up to 41,000 calls/day in Sacombank deployment
- Deployed by 40+ banks and financial institutions globally
Negative
- None.
Key Figures
Market Reality Check
Peers on Argus
Before this announcement, API was down 0.43% while several application software peers (e.g., BZAI, LAW, PUBM) also showed declines, but sector momentum data flagged this as stock-specific rather than a coordinated sector move.
Previous Partnership,AI Reports
| Date | Event | Sentiment | Move | Catalyst |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 21 | AI partnership launch | Positive | -0.4% | Strategic Sentino partnership for Physical AI agent platform and experiences. |
| Jun 18 | AI partnership launch | Positive | +0.0% | Enterprise AI agent collaboration with WIZ.AI for multilingual customer service. |
Past AI partnership announcements have produced small to flat price reactions, with one mild decline and one flat session.
Over the last several months, Agora has repeatedly highlighted AI-focused partnerships, including collaborations with Sentino and WIZ.AI under the "partnership,AI" tag. These deals emphasized enterprise-ready AI agents and localized voice AI, particularly across Southeast Asia and service-heavy verticals like banking and insurance. Historically, price moves around such announcements have been modest, with one slightly negative and one flat reaction, suggesting investors have treated these AI partnerships as incremental rather than transformational catalysts ahead of this new regional FPT collaboration.
Historical Comparison
Prior AI partnership news under this tag saw an average move of -0.22%, indicating historically muted price reactions to similar collaborations.
AI partnerships have evolved from multilingual enterprise agents with WIZ.AI to experiential Physical AI with Sentino, and now to a regional financial-services–focused rollout with FPT in Southeast Asia.
Market Pulse Summary
This announcement expands Agora’s AI footprint by pairing its conversational infrastructure with FPT’s deployments across over 40 banks and financial institutions in Southeast Asia. It reinforces a strategy of using partnerships to penetrate regulated sectors like banking, insurance, and consumer finance. Historically, similar AI collaborations have led to only modest share moves, so investors may focus on concrete adoption indicators such as call volumes handled, efficiency gains like the 58% capacity lift at Sacombank, and future financial disclosures that tie these wins to revenue.
Key Terms
conversational ai technical
ai voice agents technical
net promoter score (nps) technical
AI-generated analysis. Not financial advice.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Agora (NASDAQ: API), a global leader in real-time engagement and conversational AI technologies, and FPT, Vietnam’s leading IT services and digital transformation company, today announced a strategic partnership to expand artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across Southeast Asia’s banking and financial services sector.
The collaboration will combine Agora’s real-time engagement and conversational AI capabilities with FPT’s regional footprint and enterprise integration expertise to help financial institutions enhance customer engagement, streamline digital services, and improve operational efficiency.
By integrating Agora’s Conversational AI (Convo AI) and ultra-low-latency real-time communications (RTC) with FPT’s enterprise AI ecosystem, the partnership enables banks and financial institutions to deliver secure, intelligent, and real-time interactions across voice, chat, and video.
Supporting Southeast Asia’s Rapidly Evolving Financial Sector
Southeast Asia is experiencing a major shift in banking and financial services, driven by rising digital adoption, evolving customer expectations, and demand for seamless, always-available financial experiences across multiple channels.
As banks and financial institutions modernize legacy systems and expand digital service delivery, they face growing pressure to deliver fast, reliable, and personalized customer interactions while maintaining strict standards for data protection, operational resilience, and regulatory compliance.
Conversational AI has become a cornerstone for this transformation, helping institutions scale customer service, automate routine tasks, support digital onboarding and provide real-time assistance across omnichannel environments without compromising security or governance.
“By combining FPT’s enterprise AI capabilities with Agora’s real-time conversational infrastructure, we enable banking and financial institutions across Southeast Asia to deliver more efficient, responsive, and trusted digital experiences at scale,” said Mr. Mark Hall Andrew, Chief Revenue Officer, FPT Smart Cloud, FPT Corporation.
Powering Real-Time, AI-Driven Customer Interactions
The partnership integrates Agora’s Conversational AI and real-time voice and video infrastructure with FPT’s AI-powered conversational intelligence and contact center solutions to support key banking and financial use cases, including:
- Retail and corporate banking customer support
- Payments and account-related services
- Lending and credit lifecycle interactions
- Insurance onboarding, policy servicing, and claims assistance
- Cross-border and multilingual customer engagement
The joint solution enables banking and financial institutions to deploy AI-powered virtual assistants and human-in-the-loop advisory experiences that seamlessly combine real-time chat, voice, and video.
Built on an enterprise-grade, low-latency architecture, the solution supports secure, multilingual, and human-like interactions across mobile applications, web platforms, and contact center environments. This allows institutions to handle high interaction volumes while ensuring service consistency, operational stability, and regulatory compliance.
Proven Enterprise Adoption
FPT’s enterprise AI solutions are already deployed by over 40 banks and financial institutions globally, across digital banking, consumer finance, and large-scale customer operations.
Notable examples include:
- Sacombank — The deployment of AI Voice Agents for the “Next-Generation AI Contact Center” has increased call handling capacity by more than
58% , enabling the system to manage up to 41,000 calls/day. This has created a more seamless and convenient customer experience, contributing to a higher Net Promoter Score (NPS). - Vietcombank — Deploys AI Agents on messaging channels to handle common customer inquiries across topics such as cards, loans, interest rates, promotions, and currency exchange rates, allowing staff to focus on more complex, value-generating tasks.
- Home Credit Vietnam — Utilizes FPT AI Voice Agents to automate high-volume call center operations, handling millions of customer interactions per month while maintaining consistent service quality.
Across these deployments, FPT has demonstrated measurable impact in customer engagement automation, operational optimization, intelligent interaction routing, and service scalability, supporting banking and financial institutions through multiple stages of digital transformation.
Designed for Trust, Security, and Compliance
Across Southeast Asia, banking and financial institutions operate within increasingly rigorous regulatory frameworks governing data protection, electronic systems, consumer safeguards, and operational resilience.
The Agora–FPT joint solution is designed to support these requirements by combining real-time engagement capabilities with AI-driven automation on a secure, enterprise-ready infrastructure. This enables banking and financial institutions to reduce response times, improve service efficiency, and deliver more human-centric digital experiences—while maintaining compliance with regional regulatory expectations and internal governance standards.
“As banking and financial services across Southeast Asia continue to digitize, innovation must go hand in hand with trust, security, and compliance,” said Tony Zhao, CEO of Agora. “By combining Agora’s real-time conversational intelligence with FPT’s enterprise AI ecosystem, we enable banking and financial institutions to engage customers in a more natural, efficient, and reliable way—at scale.”
Advancing the Next Phase of Digital Transformation for Banking and Financial Institutions
The partnership reflects a shared commitment by Agora and FPT to support the ongoing modernization of banking and financial institutions across Southeast Asia.
Moving forward, both companies plan to collaborate closely with regional banks, insurance providers, system integrators, and ecosystem partners to accelerate the adoption of enterprise-grade conversational AI and real-time engagement technologies across the region.
About Agora:
Agora is the global leader in real-time engagement, providing developers with simple, flexible, and powerful APIs to embed real-time conversational AI, voice, video, interactive live streaming, and chat into their applications and IoT devices. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, Agora is trusted by over 1,800 leading organizations worldwide to power best-in-class real-time experiences across social media and live shopping, education, and telehealth. Learn more: https://agora.io/
About FPT:
FPT Corporation is a global technology and IT services provider headquartered in Vietnam, operating across Technology, Telecommunications, and Education. As an AI-first company, FPT delivers enterprise-grade AI-enabled solutions to organizations worldwide.
FPT.AI is an enterprise AI platform developed by FPT Smart Cloud, enabling organizations to automate customer engagement, optimize operations, and enhance digital experiences across banking, financial services, insurance, retail, and logistics. Learn more at https://fpt.ai/
Media contact:
Claudia Oliva
press@agora.io
FAQ
What does the Agora (API) and FPT partnership announced Feb 24, 2026 cover?
How will the Agora–FPT solution affect contact center capacity for banks like Sacombank?
Which banking use cases will Agora (API) and FPT target in Southeast Asia?
How widespread is FPT’s enterprise AI adoption in financial services today?
Will the Agora–FPT offering meet regulatory and data-protection needs for banks in the region?
What customer channels will Agora (API) and FPT support for banks after this partnership?
