EDITOR’ S NOTE
Greetings to the readers of Intelligent CIO Africa. The adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI and its possible use cases and challenges continues to be a matter of interest for African enterprises. To implement Generative AI successfully, businesses should focus on several critical factors, says Shakeel Jhazbhay at Datacentrix in our Talking Business section.
Strategic alignment is important, as bringing Generative AI initiatives in line with business goals ensures relevance and value creation. Next is data management. The success of Generative AI projects is dependent on the availability of high-quality data. Talent and training are additional important factors. Building a skilled workforce capable of using and managing Generative AI tools is critical, while upskilling existing employees and hiring specialised talent are additional components. Identification of high impact use cases that align with organisational priorities plays a role in focused deployment.
One of the immediate areas where Generative AI can provide positive value and positive ROI is in the area of cybersecurity. However, in this case there is also risk of an overrun in trust explains Ryan Boyes at Galix in our Trending section.
The automation of security processes can lead to complacency, with businesses assuming their AI tools are infallible. The reality is that AI is not perfect, it can make mistakes, and it can be manipulated, and its effectiveness depends on the quality of the data on which it is trained.
And in this month’ s cover feature we present how BankservAfrica, which is the largest automated clearing house in Africa, implemented a Rapid Payment Platform in partnership with Change Logic.
BankservAfrica identified absence of a change management framework could lead to inconsistent communication, misaligned goals, and implementation delays. BankservAfrica took the decision to appoint Change Logic to keep the project’ s moving parts together inside a flexible strategy.
The Rapid Payment Platform initiative was built around PayShap, a real-time payment system designed to make digital transactions accessible, efficient, and inclusive for all.
Turn these pages to read more about the digital transformation that is taking place across Africa.
In this month’ s Editor’ s Question, executives from Zoho, Cloud Box, NetApp, SoftServe, answer how data usage should be managed to ensure it is available for Generative AI use cases and does not violate data privacy and data compliance policies.
Wishing you the best of business success in the month ahead.
Arun Shankar Managing Editor, arun @ lynchpinmedia. com
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