United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Rector of the United Nations University Professor Tshilidzi Marwala warned against relying on probabilistic AI systems in criminal justice on the second day of the University of Johannesburg’s inaugural AI and the Law Conference, telling delegates that lawyers and policymakers cannot afford to confuse the technical accuracy of a model’s output […]

TikTok is launching an in-app AI literacy hub for users in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya as part of a wider set of AI announcements the company made at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, spanning content authenticity standards, watermarking, expanded spam detection and creator tools. The hub, announced this week, is designed […]

Kenya is looking to deepen its cooperation with the United States on artificial intelligence and digital transformation, with recent talks in Nairobi centered on technology investment, data governance and the responsible development of AI. The Department for ICT and the Digital Economy hosted a US delegation drawn from the American Embassy and the American Chamber […]

Speakers at the seventh annual ICT Editors Xchange, held in Johannesburg under the theme “Africa’s Intelligence, Africa’s Terms,” argued this week that the continent’s AI advantage will depend on training systems on African data, teaching in African languages and owning the cloud infrastructure underneath. The Huawei-hosted event brought together figures from the Chinese technology giant, […]

Woolworths has unveiled My Woolies Chef, an AI-powered food assistant integrated into the Woolworths app that uses conversational AI to help customers find meal ideas, plan cooking and shop for ingredients. The tool will launch first in beta to a selected group of existing MyDifference loyalty programme members in September 2026, with a broader rollout […]

By Ryan Boyes, Senior Security Administrator at Galix Information security, privacy and Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance are often treated as separate disciplines, but, in practice, they are closely linked. AI systems rely on information, which often includes personal or confidential data. ISO 27001 provides the security foundation, ISO 27701 extends it into privacy management, and […]

South African businesses have become highly effective at producing software quickly. What remains far less clear is why this increased engineering velocity is failing to translate into commercial growth for many companies. That is the central finding of the 2026 State of Product Development Report, released this month by Cape Town-based digital product consultancy Specno. […]

Africa has secured eight seats on the newly established AI for Good Global Commission, strengthening the continent’s representation in a global body tasked with shaping the future of artificial intelligence governance. The commission, launched by the International Telecommunication Union, held its inaugural meeting in Geneva on July 8 during the AI for Good Global Summit. […]

Artificial intelligence systems trained largely on foreign datasets risk perpetuating racial bias and undermining South Africa’s transformative constitutional vision if they are not built with local historical context, Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has warned. Kubayi delivered the warning on Thursday at the University of Johannesburg’s “AI and the Law”...

A Nigerian startup is using an AI chatbot and a vetted therapist directory to give young Africans a lower-friction route into mental wellbeing support. SereniMind, founded in 2024 by chief executive Ridwan Oyenuga, is a youth-focused platform that combines personalized wellness recommendations from an AI chatbot with access to qualified therapists, alongside self-help tools, wellbeing […]

The University of Johannesburg played host this week to the fourth Social Media Summit for Government, a two-day gathering of government communicators, policymakers and digital leaders working through what artificial intelligence means for citizen engagement and the future of public-sector communication. Held at the Johannesburg Business School on July 8 and 9 under the theme […]

Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali and Senegal have adopted a shared set of guidelines to promote ethical, inclusive and responsible artificial intelligence — a framework their backers say is designed to give Francophone African countries a common reference point as they build out national AI policies. Advocacy organization Niyel led the initiative, which […]

Telkom has pledged R100 million to establish the Telkom AI Institute, a new platform designed to equip South Africans with artificial intelligence and digital skills and foster local innovation. The pledge was announced in Geneva as part of the International Telecommunication Union’s Partner2Connect Digital Coalition. The coalition confirmed at the WSIS Forum 2026 High-Level Week […]

Refiant AI, a South Africa-founded startup that uses algorithms to compress artificial intelligence models, has launched Protea, a family of large language models the company says can process up to 10 million tokens in a single prompt. The models can process and retain significantly more information at once before generating a response, the company said. […]

Alexandria-based artificial intelligence startup TokenAI has released two new multimodal models, Horus Hiero and Horus Hiero Mini, built to read, translate and reason across Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, modern Arabic dialects and more than 100 other languages. The company says the models are the first in the Arab world to include a native hieroglyphic processing engine […]

By Matthew Turner, Head of Innovation at SolarAfrica It’s 2022, and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has officially arrived in the mainstream zeitgeist. While it looks very different to its early blockbuster portrayals (remember the malevolent supercomputer HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey or the tech-paranoia of Black Mirror?), it is surprisingly far more useful than […]

South Africa could benefit from a surge in AI data center investment as global demand for AI infrastructure grows, though experts say the opportunity carries significant environmental trade-offs. Africa currently accounts for just 1% of the world’s data centers, despite rising investment and lower construction and operating costs than many developed markets, according to financial […]

Op-Ed written by Dr. Tolulope Ajidahun A few years ago, as a newly qualified doctor, I sat at a computer at Alimosho General Hospital in Lagos and pulled up a patient’s history in under two seconds. No buffering. No “connecting…” No waiting on the network.  The hospital’s electronic medical record (EMR) system ran on a […]

Global AI-first cloud communications platform Infobip launched PitchMate, a new AI-powered conversational agent that brings football fans closer to the action of the world’s biggest football tournament. Purpose-built for the global football audience, PitchMate joins the TGR Haas F1 Team RaceMate — Infobip’s AI fan engagement solution for the TGR Haas F1 Team — in […]

The next phase of AI should be shaped with Africa, not simply about or for the continent, according to Sunil Geness, SAP’s director of global government affairs and corporate social responsibility for Africa. His comments follow the launch of the AI for Good Global Commission, announced this week by international leaders to expand access to […]

South Africa has been ranked the leading country in Africa for AI readiness and eighth globally among top outsourcing destinations, according to the 2026 Global Outsourcing AI Readiness Index published by Ataraxis. The study found that South Africa has established itself as the continent’s clear leader in enterprise AI adoption, workforce capability and overall preparedness […]