Africa’s ability to fully harness the economic potential of artificial intelligence (AI) will depend largely on building trusted, secure and locally-responsive ecosystems, Microsoft’s Head of Government Affairs for Africa, Akua Gyekye, said.

Gyekye said the debate around AI adoption in Africa had moved beyond whether the continent would embrace the technology to how it could deploy AI responsibly, confidently and at scale.

She made the remarks in an analysis of Africa’s emerging AI landscape, noting that trust would be critical to ensuring organisations benefit from AI without losing control of their data, intellectual property and institutional knowledge.

According to her, the widening gap in AI adoption between developed and developing economies underscores the urgency for Africa to strengthen its AI ecosystem.

She cited Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion Report for the first quarter of 2026, which found that generative AI usage among working-age populations stood at 27.5 per cent in the global North, compared with 15.4 per cent in the global South.

“For Africa and other countries across the global majority, closing that gap is both an economic imperative and a chance to shape how the next phase of AI develops,” Gyekye said.

The economic opportunity, she added, was substantial, with the African Development Bank estimating that inclusive development and deployment of AI could generate as much as $1 trillion in additional GDP across Africa by 2035.

Gyekye, however, argued that unlocking this potential would require more than technology adoption, stressing the need to build systems that citizens, businesses and governments can trust.

She identified three key areas for strengthening trust in Africa’s AI ecosystem: greater choice and openness, partnerships that develop local capabilities, and responsible, secure and resilient deployment.

Gyekye said African governments, businesses, researchers and developers should have meaningful choices in selecting and deploying AI technologies.

She argued that organisations should have access to diverse and interoperable AI models, allowing them to choose between frontier, open and specialised models based on their specific needs rather than being locked into a single technology provider or pathway.

“Openness should not mean the absence of safeguards,” she said, adding that an open AI ecosystem should be supported by common standards, appropriate governance and mechanisms that allow users to retain control of their data and intellectual property.

According to her, such an approach would be particularly important for Africa because it could reduce barriers for local developers, allow AI solutions to evolve alongside market and community needs, and improve resilience as technologies and models change.

She added that it would also create opportunities for African innovators to participate in the AI value chain rather than remain consumers of technologies developed elsewhere.

Gyekye also stressed the importance of partnerships in building Africa’s AI capabilities, noting that no single institution or sector could provide all the infrastructure, skills, policy and resources required for widespread AI adoption.