By Kathy Gibson – African companies are in the middle of learning and adopting artificial intelligence (AI), and adapting to the changes it brings.
But they are also looking beyond adoption at how to measure value from their AI investments, says Ladi Asuni, partner and head of tech platforms at KPMG International.
Commenting on the results of KPMG’s CEO Outlook 2026, Asuni points out that the AI challenge in Africa is no longer ambition, it is enterprise readiness.
In some ways, African CEOs are on par with their global counterparts: 72% of African CEOs identify AI as a top investment priority, compared with 79% globally – but just 14% believe their organisations are keeping pace or are ahead, compared to 66% globally.
And a massive 42% expect AI returns to take three years of longer, compared with 12% globally.
“So we can see that the appetite is there and the investment intent is strong, but enterprise readiness is the differentiator,” Asuni says.
African CEOs expect to add value by improving performance through efficiency and productivity (60%) and better decision-making (60%); and they expect to strengthen enterprise resilience through improved threat detection and security posture (53%).
But fewer CEOs expect to enhance customer and growth through profitability and growth (43%), or personalisation and management (42%).
While just 48% of African CEOs expect to see an ROI within one to three years compared to 71% globally; 42% expect an ROI after three years compared to 12% in the rest of the world.
“This tells us that we are almost on par when it comes to ambition – but in terms of realising value we have a different outlook,” Asuni points out. “For African CEOs, there is a more measured outlook for realising value from AI investments.”
This begs the question of whether Africa is indeed ready to adopt AI. Do we have the right skills, have we addressed the risk concerns? Asuni asks.
Africa is a big continent. It shares an execution challenge but not a single pathway to scaling AI.
South Africa is best positioned market, with 79% of CEOs seeing AI as an investment priority, and 20% believing they are keeping pace of are ahead of the rest of the world.
South Africa CEOs believe workforce and operation model redesign are central to scaling AI: 67% of CEOs are redeploying employees into AI-enabled roles and 57% are redesigned roles and career paths.
But scaling AI is not just a technology conversation: it depends on people, data, trust moving together, Asuni explains.
Scaling requires both work redesign and embedded trust: 82% of Africa CEOs expect roles, career paths and team structure to be redesigned for human-AI collaboration; 86% expect to retain and retrain high-potential talent; 74% expect to hire people with AI and technology capabilities; and 56% anticipate workforce reductions.
“We believe there will be a shift,” Asuni says. “There will be a reduction of workforces, there will be realignment, and there will also be an injection of new talent.”
When it comes to trust, several questions are raised around access and identity, including who is making decisions; and who or what can act?
Data stewardship becomes vital: What information can be used? How are outputs challenged?
And, most importantly, who is accountable? When things go wrong, how does the business recover?
Asuni concludes that CEOs should answer five questions now:
- Where will AI create value?
- Which foundations are limiting scale?
- How are we measuring returns?
- How must work and accountability change?
- Who owns value and is responsibility?