Bahasa or English? Writing an AI agent that switches naturally
Malaysian customers mix languages mid-sentence. Your agent's tone rules have to as well.
Code-switching is the default, not the exception
Most of the enquiries we see aren't purely Bahasa Malaysia or purely English — they switch mid-sentence, often mid-word, and the mix varies by customer, region and even time of day. An agent that responds only in the language it was first messaged in feels noticeably stiff.
Matching register, not just vocabulary
Beyond language choice, tone matters: a casual 'boleh tak' deserves a different register than a formal enquiry written entirely in English with full punctuation. We tune the agent to mirror the customer's level of formality, not just translate words.
Where it still needs guardrails
Product names, prices and technical terms stay fixed regardless of language mixing — customers should never see two different figures depending on which language they happened to ask in.