Some experts and tech enthusiasts, who attended the “AI in Action Now” conference at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, have called on AI founders, builders, and students to chart a course for Nigeria’s digital future
The AI in Action Now 2026 conference, which attracted over 500 attendees, served as a rallying cry for Nigerian innovators to move beyond the passive consumption of global technology and begin architecting Contextual AI designed specifically for the Nigerian landscape.
The central theme of the conference was the urgent need for local sovereignty in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
While global tools have dominated the early stages of the AI boom, attendees argued that the next frontier must be built on home soil.
Debola Ibiyode, the convener of the conference, opened the event by emphasizing the creation of a chain of productivity by bringing together founders, builders, and students in a single ecosystem. According to her, the conference aims to spark a revolution in how Nigeria approaches systemic challenges.
“Contextual AI is building AI on your own local context. Gone are the days where we use European products built for their context. We should take advantage and get solutions that fit us better and faster. The country that wins will be the one that builds responsibly and scales locally,” Ibiyode stated during her keynote presentation.
She specifically challenged the audience to apply these tools to critical sectors such as healthcare and finance, where local nuances like language diversity and unique transaction patterns often render foreign models less effective.
Adding a layer of strategic caution to the excitement, Dotun Adeoye, co-founder of AI Nigeria, provided a reality check on the current state of adoption. While he noted that roughly 90% of Nigerians are already interacting with AI through tools like ChatGPT or Meta AI, he argued that the business sector is only scratching the surface of its true potential.
Adeoye highlighted a massive opportunity for investors to optimize local logistics and business operations, but he stressed the importance of ethics and human-centric design.
“There is a gap in the market, but that doesn’t always mean there is a market in the gap,” Adeoye remarked while speaking to Journalists on the sideline.
He pointed toward the one million graduates Nigeria produces annually, urging builders to create AI that empowers the workforce rather than disenfranchising it.
The public sector also signaled a strong desire to transition into the future. Biodun Ogunleye, the Lagos State Commissioner of Energy and Mineral Resources, represented the government’s stance, arguing that data-driven intelligence is now the bedrock of modern administration.
“Without AI, what is governance? Just people packing papers up and down,” Commissioner Ogunleye said.
He noted that from managing complex transport networks to optimizing revenue collection, AI is no longer a luxury but a necessity for the state.
He further clarified the government’s role as an enabler rather than a competitor.
“Government is not in the business of business. We want to partner with the private sector and those with the right structures to deal with data, ensuring results that gladden the populace,” he added.
As the conference concluded, the message to Nigeria’s “Silicon Lagoon” was clear: the tools are available, the talent is present, and the problems are well-defined.
The “AI in Action Now” conference has laid the groundwork for a new era of Nigerian innovation, one where the solutions to local problems are scripted in local code.
