Reaffirming its commitment to advancing Africa’s digital transformation through artificial intelligence (AI), Google has highlighted the impact of its AI tools on the local innovation and business landscape at the AI in Action event in Cape Town.
Held under the theme “AI is Now,” Google used the opportunity to demonstrate how businesses, developers, and communities in South Africa can leverage AI to enhance productivity, ignite innovation, and tackle real-world challenges in a way that is responsible.
This year’s gathering aimed at showcasing how the fast-growing AI industry is impacting the future of work, education, and commerce in South Africa. Practical demonstrations were used to show attendees how they can adopt AI solutions to unlock new opportunities, improve operational efficiency, and keep pace in a rapidly evolving global digital economy.
“At Google, we believe in the immense potential of AI to transform businesses while uplifting the economy and significantly improve lives across South Africa,” says Kabelo Makwane, country director of Google South Africa. “We are dedicated to progressing AI responsibly and driving growth through partnerships and collaborations ensuring that AI – as a transformative technology – is not only accessible, but also truly inclusive and responsible in attempting to address local and global challenges.”
During the event, Google unveiled a partnership with the UK-based Raspberry Pi Foundation which will equip young learners across South Africa with foundational digital and AI literacy skills through the Experience AI initiative.
The programme provides them with early exposure to the tools and knowledge they will need to thrive in the digital economy. The foundation has selected local NPC, Edunova, as the implementation agent across five provinces in South Africa. It aims to train 4 200 school teachers and reach more than 210 000 learners.
“We are happy to partner with such a reputable company as Google on such an important project,” says Dietrich Baron, Edunova SA lead. “We recognise the power of AI to change the world and are excited to play a part in spreading the skills that will ensure that our future generations can utilise the technology to better their lives.”
Other announcements at the event included:
- NotebookLM available in isiZulu and Afrikaans – AI-powered research and summarisation tool, NotebookLM is now available in local South African languages, including isiZulu and Afrikaans. The tool enables students to summarise study materials in their own language or a small business owner to review market insights in Afrikaans, bridging language and understanding – gaps to ensure AI works for South Africa’s diverse linguistic communities. This marks a significant step forward in fostering inclusive local content creation and consumption.
- SynthID Detector – Another milestone at the event was the launch of the SynthID Detector, a public tool that helps users identify content that has been watermarked with SynthID. With over 10 billion pieces of content already watermarked, this tool offers a new layer of transparency and trust, especially for journalists, researchers, and anyone navigating the fast-evolving digital information landscape.