E-Business
Amid Uncertainty, Businesses are Betting on AI to Accelerate Productivity and Unlock ROI
By Linda Saunders, Country Manager & Senior Director Solution Engineering, Africa, Salesforce
In a time of rising global economic uncertainty, African businesses are increasingly turning to AI to accelerate productivity and unlock a new level of ROI. The data is compelling – according to the World Bank’s recent Global Economic Prospects report, rising global trade and policy uncertainty could weaken growth by 2.3% in 2025, impacting both major economies and emerging markets.
In the face of these headwinds, many businesses are ramping up plans to implement AI, driving new levels of productivity and cost savings. In a March 2025 survey by McKinsey, 78% of respondents reported their organisation already uses AI in at least one business function, up from 72% in early 2024 and 55% a year earlier.
Put simply, AI is the most transformative technology of our lifetime. Its latest iteration, agentic AI—always-on intelligent agents that can learn, reason, and execute tasks independently – will reshape how companies operate, compete, and perform work.
While this new era holds great promise, the journey to becoming an agentic enterprise can feel daunting.
Aligning your business with a tangible agentic AI strategy, readying your technology infrastructure, and understanding the metrics that define success are essential pillars to unlocking the agentic AI opportunity and realising the return on investment (ROI) this moment demands.
Realise trapped value with automation and augmentation
Nearly half of desk workers report spending time on repetitive, low-value, or unrelated tasks to the jobs they were hired to do. Across many industries, operational inefficiencies and unrecognised opportunities are buried deep within data, processes, and human workflows, affecting everything from employee engagement to the bottom line.
The first step to reigniting productivity growth is identifying what’s holding organisations back and finding solutions to these challenges, known as trapped value analysis.
Start by identifying where high-value, underperforming workflows exist. For example, are there manual tasks slowing teams down? Can they be automated? Which customer interactions can be more personalised?
Augmenting human capacity with a digital workforce is key to realising trapped value, enabling smarter, faster decision-making grounded in trusted data and improving personalised customer interactions at scale.
Imagine a marketer at a young company suddenly supported by a team of AI agents to strategise, plan, and deliver best-in-class campaigns. Or a sales rep with instant access to real-time customer data analysis and predictions of which leads are most likely to convert.
Deploying AI agents isn’t about replacing people; it’s about empowering employees to focus on what they do best – strategic thinking, innovating, and building relationships with customers.
Overcoming productivity pain points with a dynamic IT infrastructure powered by digital labour allows businesses to reprioritise their newly available human capacity to where it can have the greatest impact. This is key to realising new revenue streams or business models and is fundamental to unlocking ROI.
Set critical metrics to measure ROI
The advantages of digital labour for optimising operations are clear. However, according to Gartner, over 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027 due to reasons such as unclear business value.
To demonstrate real ROI, organisations need to focus on enterprise productivity, driving business value through quality, cost, speed, and scale.
For customer service teams, measuring ROI can involve assessing customer satisfaction, such as improving experiences with 24/7 support across channels where AI agents triage requests and provide step-by-step instructions using natural responses.
When Salesforce added Agentforce to its Help site in October 2024, the goal was to set a world-class standard for agentic service. With an AI agent answering customer service questions in natural language, using unified data to provide fast, 24/7 support, our human engineers can focus on complex issues. To date, Agentforce has handled over 1 million support requests and is projected to save $50 million annually by the end of this fiscal year.
For sales teams, ROI can be seen in faster response times and increased lead qualification. Agentic AI enables scaling with autonomous outreach to answer product questions, handle objections, and book meetings, interacting with customers across relevant channels with personalised responses.
All of these efficiency gains free up time for humans to focus on improving and driving growth in other areas of the business.
Using metrics – from deflection rates to customer satisfaction scores and operational savings — enables organisations to assess the performance of their AI agent initiatives and calculate ROI effectively.
Access long-term value
By focusing on these metrics, African businesses can effectively assess the performance of their AI initiatives and calculate ROI, moving from a position of uncertainty to one of strategic growth.
In essence, the agentic AI era is not about a single, abrupt change but a fundamental shift in how people and technology work together.
By embracing a phased, strategic approach, African businesses can navigate this transition successfully, accelerate productivity, and ultimately unlock significant long-term value. This is the new partnership that will enable businesses to thrive amid today’s challenges.
Microsoft is planning to unveil its new Maia 300 AI chip this fall, potentially as soon as next month, The Information reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the plans.
The company introduced its Maia AI chip in November 2023 but has lagged rivals such as Alphabet and Amazon in scaling up its in-house chip efforts as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s costly processors.
Google began recognizing revenue from direct sales of its custom AI chips, called Tensor Processing Units, in the quarter ended June, while Amazon has also seen growing adoption of its processors, including its Trainium chips.
Microsoft has been in talks with chipmaker TSMC to secure manufacturing capacity for more than 300,000 units of the chip for delivery in 2027, according to the report. It is also looking to significantly ramp up production and persuade major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt the chip.
Microsoft ultimately aims to secure capacity for more than 1 million Maia 300 chips, though component supplies and ongoing capacity negotiations with TSMC could constrain its plans, according to the report.
It unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 in January, built by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology.
Microsoft packed the chip with a significant amount of SRAM, a type of memory that can provide speed advantages for AI systems handling large numbers of user requests.
X has announced plans to discontinue its Revenue Sharing programme and introduce a new Original Content Rewards programme to reward creators for producing original content on the platform.
The social media company announced the changes at the weekend in a post on its X Creators handle, saying the new programme would reward creators who contribute original content.
“Today, we’re introducing the Original Content Rewards Program, a new way to reward creators who bring original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity, and commentary to X,” the company said.
X said it would stop accepting new enrolments into the Revenue Sharing programme from Friday, while existing participants would continue earning until September 7, 2026.
“Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new enrollments into Revenue Sharing,” it said.
According to the company, existing Revenue Sharing participants will receive three final payouts, with two scheduled for August 14 and August 28, while the final payment for earnings accrued through September 7 is expected around September 11.
X said existing Revenue Sharing participants would begin getting access to apply for the new programme from September 8, subject to meeting its eligibility requirements.
The first payout under the Original Content Rewards programme will be made on August 28, 2026, while existing Revenue Sharing creators who enrol in the new programme from September 8 will receive their first payment on September 25.
Under the new programme, eligible creators will earn from qualified impressions generated by their original content, with payments made every two weeks.
X defined qualified impressions as unique impressions from Premium users on the Home Timeline feed, where at least 50 per cent of a post is visible.
On the other hand, “The following are excluded from qualified impressions: impressions from the same account counted more than once per post; paid, promoted, or artificially generated impressions; and fraudulent impressions,” it said.
To qualify, creators must be at least 18 years old, live in a country where the programme is available, maintain an account in good standing and have either a personal or vusiness account.
They must also subscribe to X Premium, Premium+ or Premium Business, have at least 500 verified followers and record at least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within the previous 90 days.
X said creators must also regularly post original content to remain eligible.
“We want to recognize creators who break news, share expertise, tell stories, create entertainment, and contribute meaningful perspectives to the conversation,” the company said.
The platform said original content could include threads, videos, memes, graphics, illustrations, reporting, analysis, commentary and reactions that add meaningful value to existing conversations.
It said creators who use content produced by others would need to add meaningful commentary, context, analysis, humour or creative transformation for such posts to qualify.
“Building on existing conversations is a core part of X, but simply reposting someone else’s content is not enough,” it said.
X said minor edits such as cropping, filters, borders, watermarks, speed adjustments or simple text overlays would generally not qualify as meaningful transformation on their own.
It also warned that content copied or substantially reproduced from another creator, content downloaded and re-uploaded from X or another platform without being the original author’s, automated content, disinformation and misleading content would be ineligible.
The company said accounts that violate the programme’s requirements could be temporarily or permanently removed from it, depending on the severity of the violation.
It added that creators would be responsible for ensuring they had the necessary rights, permissions or licences to use content created by others.
“Original content is content you personally create that reflects your own voice, perspective, expertise, or creativity,” X said.
The company said the new programme was intended to reward creators who make the platform more valuable by bringing original ideas and perspectives to its conversations.
“The Original Content Rewards Program is designed to reward the creators who start them, shape them, and move them forward,” it said.
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has introduced so-called Nigeria’s Certified Cloud Register, regulatory framework developed under the agency’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative to determine which cloud providers are authorized to handle sensitive data, such as banking records.
In effect, from October, NITDA requires banks, fintech companies and other regulated organisations to source cloud infrastructure providers from a national register of certified firms approved to host sensitive financial and government data.
The Certified Cloud Register, is expected to strengthen data sovereignty, improve regulatory oversight and support the implementation of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) data localisation policy, which takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Under the framework, banks, fintechs, government institutions and other regulated entities will be able to verify whether cloud service providers, data centre operators, managed service providers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure companies have met NITDA’s certification requirements before entrusting them with critical digital workloads.
The initiative is expected to provide regulated institutions with a standardised process for selecting cloud infrastructure providers that satisfy Nigeria’s technical, security and regulatory requirements.
According to NITDA, the framework establishes “a common national standard, an independent assessment process and a public register of approved providers that banks, fintechs and government institutions can rely on when selecting cloud infrastructure partners.”
The register is expected to become a key compliance tool ahead of the CBN’s directive, which requires all payment transaction data generated within Nigeria to be stored and processed locally, effective from January 1, 2027.
The policy applies to deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, payment service providers, switching companies and other financial institutions.
The certification regime is also expected to reshape Nigeria’s cloud computing ecosystem, making regulatory approval a major requirement for cloud providers seeking to handle sensitive data for regulated industries.
Figures cited by NITDA showed that Nigeria’s 10 largest banks spent about N177.91 billion on information technology in the first quarter of 2026, representing a 31 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year.
A sizeable portion of the investment currently supports cloud infrastructure hosted outside Nigeria, a trend the new certification framework is expected to address by encouraging greater utilisation of compliant local infrastructure.
NITDA said the certification programme will apply the same technical and regulatory standards to indigenous cloud providers and international hyperscale operators, creating a level playing field for all companies seeking to provide cloud services to regulated sectors.
The agency also disclosed that more than 85 per cent of Nigerian businesses currently rely on cloud services, with the majority using infrastructure hosted outside the country.
It said the new framework is aimed at improving confidence in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure while promoting local capacity and enhancing oversight of critical national data.
Speaking on the objective of the initiative, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general of NITDA, said the programme is designed to strengthen Nigeria’s position in the global digital economy rather than exclude foreign technology companies.
According to him, the initiative is intended “to redefine the terms under which Nigeria participates in the global digital economy rather than isolate the country from international technology providers.”
The Certified Cloud Register forms part of broader efforts by the Federal Government to deepen digital trust, strengthen cybersecurity and ensure that critical financial and public sector data are managed in line with Nigeria’s evolving data governance and sovereignty objectives.
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