Despite continued investment in artificial intelligence (AI) across Africa, only 36 per cent of organisations on the continent trust AI-generated insights enough to use them in business decision-making, according to a new report by PwC.
The report, Decoding ROI from AI in Africa, highlights a significant confidence gap between African businesses and global AI leaders, where 60 per cent of organisations say employees trust AI-generated recommendations for decision-making.
PwC warns that this lack of trust could slow the continent’s ability to unlock the full value of AI at a time when the technology is rapidly reshaping industries and competitive advantage.
The study found that while AI experimentation is becoming widespread across Africa, many organisations remain cautious about integrating AI into core business processes.
As a result, companies risk missing out on productivity gains, new revenue opportunities, and business transformation benefits being realised by firms that have successfully embedded AI into decision-making and operations.
According to PwC, the trust challenge is emerging alongside another critical issue: underinvestment. African organisations currently allocate a median of just 2 per cent of revenue to AI initiatives, compared to 5 per cent among the world’s leading AI-driven companies, limiting their ability to scale successful projects beyond pilot stages.
According to the report, the world’s most AI-savvy companies are generating 7.2 times higher returns from artificial intelligence investments than their peers, even as more than $7 trillion in enterprise value shifted across industries globally in 2025, according to a new report by PwC.
PwC said the top 20 per cent of firms with the strongest AI capabilities currently capture 74 per cent of all AI-driven financial returns globally, highlighting the growing concentration of value among companies that are scaling AI aggressively.
“Findings from the study show that the most AI-fit companies generate 7.2 times greater AI-driven performance than others on an industry-adjusted basis. They capture more AI-driven revenue growth, achieve greater efficiency and cost improvements, and realise more substantial operating model transformation,” the PwC report added.
The study, which surveyed 1,217 large organisations worldwide, including 85 in Africa, found that companies generating the strongest AI returns are no longer focusing solely on productivity gains or cost reductions, but are increasingly using AI to create new revenue streams, reinvent business models and reposition themselves for emerging markets.
“African business leaders have learned to make strategic decisions under constraints. Capital constraints, infrastructure gaps, skills scarcity, currency volatility, and the need to protect fragile operating performance have made building resilience a business imperative. As AI reshapes competition, companies with higher AI fitness are realising outsized returns, which may widen the gap in market leadership and profitability over time.
“In today’s business environment, African CEOs cannot afford to let constraints slow reinvention, as delay may limit their ability to compete for emerging sources of growth. PwC’s AI performance study shows the companies seeing the biggest returns from AI are not simply chasing improved productivity or cost savings. They are making bold decisions, using AI to drive growth and new value creation.
“Africa’s AI Fitness Index sits at the global median, yet the region trails AI leaders across every major dimension of AI-driven performance. This gap suggests that the challenge is not adoption, but execution at scale. The opportunity for the region is not to do more AI. It is to scale the right AI, deliberately and decisively,” the global professional services firm stated.
