Telecom
Trusted, conversational AI will drive productivity & decision-making – here’s how
By Zuko Mdwaba, Salesforce Area VP / Africa Executive
Businesses are embracing AI and increasing productivity across every industry, with 45% of executive leaders reporting increased investments in AI. Early enterprise adopters are already seeing the benefits, and freeing up more than 30% of time from every employee so they can be more strategic and creative.
Moving forward, every company will undergo an AI transformation to increase productivity and drive efficiency. As the technology continues to advance, it is becoming easier than ever to apply its insights and tailored content to everyday business decisions. By infusing trusted AI across every job, business, and industry, together we can unlock a more productive, innovative business economy.
Nowhere is the potential for transformation more clear than with conversational AI – assisting users within their flow of work, enabling them to ask questions in natural language, and receive relevant and trustworthy answers that are grounded in secure company data.
The capability to offer options for additional actions beyond the user’s query – such as a recommended action plan after a sales call, or creating a new service knowledge article – is fundamentally reshaping how people build and interact with business applications to achieve higher performance and job satisfaction.
At Dreamforce recently, Salesforce introduced the next generation of Einstein, its AI technology, bringing conversational AI to any workflow, user, department and industry. This includes Einstein Copilot – a trusted out-of-the-box conversational AI assistant, built into the user experience of every Salesforce application.
The great advantage of this technology is that it can be customised and built to the unique specifications of any business, allowing employees to easily integrate it into their day-to-day work.
For marketers, for example, it means benefiting from automatically generated email copy for campaigns, creating smarter campaign segmentation, and creating website landing pages based on personalised consumer browsing and buying preferences.
In commerce, it means taking care of complex and time-consuming tasks like managing multi-product catalogue data, creating product descriptions in multiple languages, personalising product promotions, and generating search engine optimisation (SEO) metadata that drive conversions. Embedding AI assistants into websites will enhance customer interactions by powering real-time chat, or integrating with messaging platforms like WhatsApp, or SMS.
In healthcare, an administrator can automatically reduce patient scheduling no-shows and generate appointment summaries. In financial services, an advisor can analyse client spending and savings history to offer personalised coaching and create tailored plans and goals.
The need for secure AI architecture
Any business’ AI strategy is only as good as its data strategy. Yet today’s customer data has never been more fragmented.
On average, organisations are using 1,061 different applications, yet only 29% of them are currently integrated.
What companies really want is one connected platform or one that will connect all of their data. In this era of AI, organisations need a customer data platform that acts as a single source of truth enabling them to drive business resilience, meaningful customer engagement, and future growth.
With a secure AI architecture, teams can benefit from generative AI without compromising their customer data, while at the same time letting companies use their trusted data to improve generative AI responses.
It’s crucial that AI recommendations are reliable, and that users are enabled to train models on their own data and validate these responses. Every effort to mitigate harmful outputs by conducting bias, explainability, and robustness assessments should always be a priority in AI.
By combining an integrated customer data platform with a conversational AI platform that draws on secure, trusted data, business leaders and their employees can be confident in making better, data-driven decisions.
The era of generative AI is just getting started, but the full potential of this technology’s benefits is yet to be realised. There is so much promise and opportunity for businesses to gain real value and growth, ultimately giving employees and customers a better experience.
Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), has raised the alarm over a diesel supply crisis caused by an ongoing strike by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).
Mr Tony Emoekpere, president, ATCON in a statement said that the fuel supply disruption is critically affecting telecom base stations, pushing them to the brink of a shutdown and threatening millions of mobile and internet users in the region.
“This strike, which stems from the persistent harassment of tanker and petroleum product drivers by police officers in Lagos State, has effectively halted all truck loading operations and fuel movements,” Emoekpere stated.
He explained that diesel supply to telecom infrastructure has been severely impacted, leaving critical sites with dangerously low fuel levels.
According to him, if urgent measures are not taken, the situation could escalate into a full-blown network blackout, disrupting essential services, including mobile and internet access, business operations, emergency response systems, and daily communications.
ATCON has called on the governors of Lagos and Ogun states to intervene immediately by facilitating the release of diesel from depots to telecom operators to prevent further deterioration of the situation.
“This is not just a telecom issue—it is a national emergency that could cripple economic activities and compromise public safety,” Emoekpere stressed.
The association also appealed to security agencies and petroleum unions to resolve the crisis swiftly to safeguard Nigeria’s connectivity and economic stability.
ATCON emphasised that a prolonged disruption in fuel supply to telecom infrastructure could have far-reaching consequences for both businesses and individuals who rely on stable communication networks for daily operations.
In 2023, Nigerians spent a total of about ₦5.3 trillion on telecommunications services, which includes calls, data, SMS, and other telecom services, according to the Leadership.
Specifically for voice calls, Nigerians made approximately 408.5 billion minutes of local calls, generating around ₦3.28 trillion from outgoing calls and ₦3.23 trillion from incoming calls, totaling about ₦6.51 trillion in call-related revenue according to projections based on 2023 call volumes and tariff data.
However, the ₦5.3 trillion figure represents the overall telecom sector revenue, with voice calls being a major component but also including data and other services.
For individual spending, MTN subscribers spent an average of ₦2,508 monthly on voice calls in 2023, showing a 14.4% increase from 2022, while Airtel customers spent about ₦1,694 monthly on voice calls.
Total telecom spending (calls, data, SMS, etc.): ₦5.3 trillion in 2023
Estimated revenue from voice calls alone: around ₦6.5 trillion based on call minutes and tariffs
Average monthly spending on calls per subscriber: ₦1,694 to ₦2,508 depending on the network
Nigeria’s corporate elite gathered recently to bid farewell to one of the nation’s most influential business titans, Dr. Pascal Gabriel Dozie.
The Nigerian Exchange Group’s headquarters in Marina, Lagos, played host to an ‘Afternoon of Tributes’ that saw industry captains, financial moguls, and family members celebrate the extraordinary legacy of a man who helped reshape Nigeria’s economic landscape.
MTN Nigeria Chairman, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, captured the mood of the gathering when he described the late Dozie as “a visionary leader, a true patriot, and a trailblazer” whose impact continues to reverberate across Nigeria’s business terrain.
“Thanks to his remarkable foresight and unwavering dedication, MTN Nigeria didn’t just find its footing—it soared,” Ndukwe told the distinguished audience.
“Today, it stands not only as the largest telecommunications company in the country but also as one of the most highly valued corporations on the NGX Premium Board.”
The symbolic bell-ringing ceremony—a highlight of the event—paid homage to Dozie’s pivotal role in transforming both Nigeria’s capital market and telecommunications sector.
Speaker after speaker painted the portrait of a man whose influence transcended conventional boundaries. Beyond founding Diamond Bank and steering MTN Nigeria to unprecedented heights, Dozie was celebrated for embodying the rare combination of business acumen and ethical leadership.
Throughout the afternoon, the late business icon was remembered not merely as a successful entrepreneur but as a nation-builder whose contributions spanned critical sectors from banking and telecoms to public policy and education.
More than his corporate achievements, however, it was Dozie’s personal qualities that dominated tributes—his uncompromising integrity, innovative thinking, disarming humility, and lifelong commitment to service.
As the event concluded, it became clear that the gathering was more than a memorial—it was a celebration of possibilities, a testament to what can be achieved when purpose meets passion and when leadership is firmly rooted in service to others.
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