Sovereign data governance will drive Africa’s economic independence and technological innovation
Data and digital sovereignty are no longer abstract or distant concepts for Africa. They are active, pressing conversations, prompting governments, companies and institutions to critically look at the legislative and regulatory environment. By Wiaan Vermaak, group...
Agentic AI and orchestration will drive the next chapter of CX in West Africa
Customer experience (CX) is entering a new phase in Nigeria and across West Africa as organisations expand their use of digital channels. Organisations are moving beyond basic automation towards more intelligent, outcome-focused experiences that can understand...
Consistent experiences are the key to frictionless customer journeys
Consumers trust payment systems that work in a familiar way, irrespective of gateway, payment method, or digital wallet, writes Rahul Jain, CEO and co-founder of Peach Payments. The recently released Online Retail in South Africa 2026 study found that card declines...
AI and the explosive impact on shopping and payments
Everyone will remember the hype before the pandemic about the so-called fourth industrial revolution. 4IR was everywhere. By Wayne Steppe, enterprise architect at Ecentric Payment Systems While we were distracted by a global shutdown, the 4IR has not gone anywhere....
Should you trust AI with high-stakes decisions in your day-to-day life?
If you have asked an app like ChatGPT or Claude for a recipe recommendation, travel tips or tech support lately, you are not alone. Around seven in ten adults in South Africa have used an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, with many of us relying on the technology...
Small increase in unemployment for Q3
The official unemployment rate was 33,7% in the third quarter of 2026, according to the quarterly Labour Force Survey for the third quarter of 2026. There was an increase of 101 000 in the number of employed persons to 16,8-million, and the number of unemployed...
Partnering adds value in an AI-first world
Kathy Gibson reports from Sage Future for Partners in Amsterdam – ERP software partners are under immense pressure to change the way they do business. “We are at an inflexion point in the mid-market,” says Pieter Bensch, MD and executive vice-president: UK, Ireland...
Sage outlines blueprint for partner growth
Kathy Gibson reports from Sage Future for Partners in Amsterdam – Mid-market customers are under pressure to modernise their businesses using technologies like cloud and AI. This is driving Sage to reimagine what it can be and should be for its customers and partners,...
SMEs need to integrate digital payments with business ops to reap benefits
SMEs in South Africa have largely moved beyond the first stage of digital payment adoption, but a productivity gap remains, according to Visa in its latest Pay and Get Paid 2026 report. The new report says the vast majority of surveyed SMEs in South Africa actively...
AMD builds the classical foundation for quantum’s future
A new codesign platform for quantum error correction from IBM, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and AMD colocates IBM quantum computers with ORNL's Umbra High-Performance Computing system. Umbra is composed of AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs and 5th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs....
When a youth employment incentive becomes a tax risk
South Africa has, for more than a decade, used a combination of tax and policy measures to encourage employers to create opportunities for young people. By Joon Chong, partner at Webber Wentzel The Employment Tax Incentive (ETI), the Youth Employment Service (YES),...
Private cloud, data sovereignty, cost shape infrastructure decisions in Africa
For much of the past decade, the advice to African organisations was to put as much as they could into the public cloud, and many did. When the large global providers opened data centres in South Africa, that became easier still. Businesses now want to know where each...