But amid this accelerating enthusiasm, a more fundamental question risks being overlooked:
Who is actually able to access these technologies and who is being left behind?
A sophisticated digital platform may function perfectly from a technical perspective while remaining inaccessible to millions of people in practice.
This contradiction lies at the heart of Africa’s emerging AI transition.
Technology alone does not automatically create inclusion. Digital innovation may appear transformative from within urban innovation ecosystems while remaining disconnected from the daily realities of rural communities, persons with disabilities, populations with limited digital literacy and citizens living at the margins of digital infrastructure.
The challenge facing Africa today is therefore not simply whether artificial intelligence can function technologically. The deeper challenge is whether it can genuinely respond to the complexity of human realities across the continent.
Artificial intelligence systems are often designed as though societies were socially uniform and technologically equal. But African societies are shaped by enormous diversity linguistic, cultural, territorial and economic.
In Morocco alone, a simple question asked in Darija may be formulated differently from one city or region to another. Vocabulary, expressions and social references evolve across generations, territories and educational backgrounds. A system trained to recognize one form of expression may fail entirely when confronted with another.
This reality extends far beyond Morocco. Across Africa, vernacular languages, local dialects and oral forms of communication remain central to how millions of people access information and express vulnerability, trust or social need. Yet many AI systems continue to be developed around standardized linguistic models that fail to capture this complexity.
When technologies cannot understand the ways people naturally communicate, exclusion becomes embedded within the system itself.
This is one of the central lessons we encountered while working on AI-related civic initiatives focused on social inclusion and access to information.
What quickly became apparent, however, was that technological efficiency alone could not guarantee meaningful inclusion. The real difficulty emerged in the interaction between digital systems and lived social realities language, culture, age, vulnerability, trust and unequal access.
When these systems address sensitive issues related to rights, health or social vulnerability, misunderstanding is no longer a minor technical inconvenience. It becomes an ethical issue.
Access to information itself is shaped by context. A digital platform designed to facilitate access to public services may appear simple for highly connected urban users while becoming deeply frustrating for someone navigating technology for the first time. For a young person in a rural area with unstable internet access, limited digital literacy and expensive mobile data, even completing a basic online administrative procedure can become an obstacle rather than a solution.
Technology therefore cannot be separated from context.
This complexity forced us to rethink certain assumptions commonly associated with digital innovation. Responsible innovation sometimes requires the ability to pause, reassess and question technological tools instead of celebrating them prematurely.
In recent years, Africa has witnessed a growing tendency to equate digitalization with progress itself. But building more applications, platforms or AI tools does not necessarily mean societies are becoming more inclusive.
In fact, some forms of technological acceleration risk reproducing or even deepening existing inequalities.
How can digital inclusion be discussed seriously when millions of people still face unstable internet access, limited connectivity or the high cost of mobile data? How can sophisticated digital platforms serve rural populations if many users possess neither the technological familiarity nor the infrastructure required to engage with them effectively?
The question is not only whether institutions can afford to invest in artificial intelligence. It is also whether ordinary citizens can afford to access and use these technologies consistently in their daily lives. For many families across Africa, internet subscriptions, smartphones and mobile data already represent a significant monthly financial burden. A digital solution cannot be considered truly inclusive if the populations it aims to serve cannot realistically afford to engage with it.
Artificial intelligence may appear revolutionary from within urban innovation ecosystems while remaining practically invisible in marginalized areas.
This disconnect between technological ambition and lived reality is one of the most important governance questions facing Africa today.
I was reminded of this reality during a workshop on civic technology when a young participant raised a question that remained with me long after the discussion ended.
He explained that he had travelled from a mountainous rural area to attend the workshop and considered himself fortunate simply to have had the opportunity to be physically present. But his reality at home, he said, was entirely different. Internet connectivity remained unstable or inaccessible. Digital infrastructure was limited. Even basic access to online platforms required financial means many young people in his community simply did not possess.
“How,” he asked, “are we supposed to participate in the digital future if we do not even have the tools required to access it?”
It was a simple question, but one that cuts to the heart of Africa’s digital transition.
Artificial intelligence and digital platforms may create extraordinary opportunities, but they also risk widening existing inequalities between urban and rural populations if accessibility and infrastructure gaps remain unaddressed. A technological revolution cannot be considered inclusive if entire communities remain structurally excluded from the conditions necessary to participate in it.
The issue becomes even more critical when discussing persons with disabilities.
Accessibility is still too often treated as a secondary consideration added after technological deployment rather than as a foundational principle integrated from the beginning.
Yet digital exclusion increasingly means social exclusion.
As public services, educational opportunities and access to information progressively move into digital spaces, citizens unable to navigate these systems risk becoming marginalized from essential dimensions of public life.
A visually impaired user may struggle to access poorly adapted platforms lacking screen-reader compatibility or audio accessibility. A deaf user may encounter content entirely dependent on audio without captioning or sign language adaptation. A person with cognitive disabilities may find interfaces impossible to navigate. Elderly populations may face technological barriers that younger users take for granted. Individuals with low literacy levels may be excluded entirely from systems designed around assumptions of digital fluency.
And still, discussions surrounding AI frequently remain dominated by technological performance rather than human accessibility.
Innovation should not be measured solely by the sophistication of technology. It should also be measured by whether ordinary people can meaningfully access, understand and trust these systems.
This is where many global debates surrounding artificial intelligence still fail to confront reality honestly.
Artificial intelligence is often portrayed as neutral and objective. In reality, algorithms inherit the biases of the societies and datasets that produce them. When African realities are absent from the systems shaping digital technologies, exclusion becomes automated.
This is particularly dangerous for women and marginalized communities.
Much of the global AI conversation continues to approach inclusion superficially, as though entire populations experienced technology in the same way. But inequality never operates uniformly. A rural girl does not experience digital spaces like an urban university student. A migrant adolescent faces vulnerabilities different from those of a financially privileged user. A young woman with disabilities navigates technological environments differently from someone without accessibility barriers.
If artificial intelligence systems fail to recognize these intersecting realities, they risk reinforcing invisible forms of discrimination at scale.
This is why AI governance cannot remain disconnected from broader conversations about human rights, accessibility and social justice.
The challenge is not simply preparing societies to consume technology. It is ensuring that technological systems reflect the realities of the people they claim to serve.
This also raises deeper questions about digital sovereignty.
If African societies do not actively shape the technologies they adopt, they risk depending increasingly on systems designed elsewhere, trained on external realities and insufficiently adapted to local contexts. Languages disappear. Cultural references become invisible. Social complexity is flattened into standardized digital models disconnected from everyday life.
Africa cannot afford to become merely a testing ground or consumer market for technologies developed according to priorities defined elsewhere.
Nor can artificial intelligence remain accessible only to highly educated urban elites while the majority of citizens are left navigating systems they neither understand nor control.
The democratization of AI is therefore not optional. It is a democratic necessity.
Artificial intelligence must become understandable, accessible and socially grounded. This requires investment not only in infrastructure and innovation ecosystems, but also in digital literacy, ethical governance and inclusive public policies.
Most importantly, it requires humility.
Technology alone will not solve structural inequalities. Artificial intelligence cannot replace social trust, public policy, education or human understanding. And innovation disconnected from social realities risks becoming performative rather than transformative.
Africa’s digital future should not be measured by how many applications are launched or how many institutions adopt the language of AI. It should be measured by whether technological transformation genuinely expands participation, accessibility and dignity for ordinary citizens.
The future of artificial intelligence in Africa will not ultimately be decided by algorithms alone.
It will be decided by the human choices societies make about inclusion, accessibility and whose realities matter enough to be reflected in the systems shaping tomorrow.
By Karima Rhanem
Senior Managing Editor, The New Africa Magazine
