At 25, Samandar Tursunaliev is turning Uzbekistan’s AI ideas into reality. From a small village to a growing startup, his work shows how young innovators are shaping the country’s digital future.
Samandar Tursunaliev is already one of the emerging figures in Uzbekistan’s growing tech scene. As founder and CEO of KOTIB AI, an AI startup providing software solutions for businesses, he represents a new generation of innovators placing Uzbekistan firmly on the global AI map.
Tursunaliev’s journey from a small village on the Kyrgyz border to leading a startup with dozens of enterprise clients mirrors Uzbekistan’s broader technological transformation.
His story reflects not only entrepreneurial grit, but also how government policy, local innovation, and global ambition are coming together to reshape the country’s digital future.
Building a startup
Born and raised in a modest community near the Kyrgyz border, Tursunaliev’s early path led him to South Korea for higher studies, a journey he ultimately interrupted to return home and build his own business.
Like many young Uzbek innovators, he believed there was an opportunity to bridge global technology with local needs.
His first product, a speech-to-text tool helping journalists convert spoken words into written text automatically, was imperfect at launch. But rather than abandoning it, Tursunaliev pushed forward, iterating relentlessly until the technology became commercially viable.
What began as a basic transcription service has now grown into KOTIB AI, a broader AI platform serving a growing number of companies and sectors in Uzbekistan.
KOTIB AI for the digital age
At its core, KOTIB AI is designed to augment human productivity rather than replace it, a message Tursunaliev conveys when engaging potential corporate partners. He emphasises that AI should empower workers, enhancing efficiency and service quality while reducing repetitive tasks.
The startup’s solutions include tools for speech recognition and transcription, automated customer support agents, analytics for call centres and multilingual content workflows.
Built with Uzbekistan’s linguistic diversity in mind, KOTIB AI supports Uzbek, Russian, and English, addressing the complexities of local dialects that many global tools struggle to process accurately.
Despite initial scepticism, including concerns over job displacement, Tursunaliev insists his goal is to boost efficiency without undermining human roles: “AI will replace those who don’t adapt, not those who embrace tools that help them excel,” he says.
Tursunaliev’s approach reflects a broader trend: local startups are increasingly creating home-grown tools tailored to regional needs as Uzbekistan intensifies efforts to develop its national AI infrastructure.
Government strategy documents highlight wide-ranging support for AI, from educational initiatives and training programmes to innovation clusters and startup incentives such as the ‘5 Million AI Leaders’ programme, a government initiative to train AI specialists and support startups.
Support and challenges
Uzbekistan’s leadership has made artificial intelligence a strategic priority, aiming to position the country as a regional hub for AI research and innovation. National programmes seek to train AI specialists, attract investment, and integrate AI solutions across public and private sectors.
Forums, hackathons, and prize competitions with significant funding have been launched to support emerging ventures.
Bolstered by incentives like reduced tax rates for IT startups reportedly as low as 1% of income, the country is becoming fertile ground for AI businesses that can scale regionally and globally.
This supportive environment has helped companies like KOTIB AI thrive, but innovators like Tursunaliev are also navigating broader challenges, from talent acquisition and public awareness to the inherent difficulties of building cutting-edge technology in a developing market.
Expanding beyond Uzbekistan
Strategic ambitions extend beyond national borders. Tursunaliev envisions expanding into neighbouring Central Asian markets first, then targeting major global markets such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the United States.
His roadmap includes strengthening his team with internationally competitive talent and positioning KOTIB AI as a global contender within five years. His vision resonates with a youthful generation in Uzbekistan already dreaming of tech innovation and entrepreneurship.
What sets Tursunaliev apart is not only his technical skills but his human-centred perspective. Capturing the essence of Uzbekistan’s new tech generation, Samandar Tursunaliev embodies both the promise and complexity of the AI era, proving that innovation can flourish wherever initiative and support converge.
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