Report: The Global AI Agenda

Curious about how organisations in Africa and the Middle East are using AI, and more importantly how they plan to use it in the future? Then you’ll want to check out a new report by MIT Technology Review Insights — produced in association with omnichanel customer experience and contact centre solutions leader Genesys — titled The global AI Agenda: The Middle East and Africa.

THE REPORT, which was released in June, is part of The Global Agenda, a global study of over 1000 AI experts conducted in January and February.

The study examines AI adoption, leading use cases, benefits and challenges. An interesting insight from the report, which MIT Technology Review pointed out, is how the wealthier countries in the Middle East are exploring AI as part of broad economic transformation plans — moving from oil and reinvesting the surpluses into innovation — while in Africa AI efforts are more bottom-up, and often driven through partnerships with global tech companies and local startups solving social challenges like health care and food security.

Some of the reports top findings include:

Interest in and uptake of AI is set to continue in the coming years with 44% of respondents expecting AI to power between 21% and 30% of their business processes in the next three years

Customer service departments — think chatbot advisers in the financial services sector and machinelearning based scoring — are most actively using AI across Africa and the Middle East. Less than a third of respondents stated that they are currently using AI to grow revenue, with sales and marketing expected to be a major growth area in the coming years.

The main obstacles around AI in Africa and the Middle East revolve around change management (58%, relative to the global average of 51%) and issues around data quantity, quality and availability

Check out the full report here ai