Econet AI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, has launched a campaign to encourage Zimbabweans to learn about artificial intelligence (AI) and use it in their daily lives, targeting schools, small businesses and social gatherings.
The campaign shifts the company’s focus from using AI in its own operations to promoting wider public adoption, drawing on strategies it used to popularise services such as EcoCash.
“We want everyone who has a smartphone to start using AI, and that is nearly 70% of our base. Unfortunately, you can’t access AI without a proper smartphone,” said Econet AI Chief Executive Officer Navdeep Kapur.
The campaign centres on CAIMEX, a platform that gives users access to 100 AI models and allows them to select the cheapest model for a particular task. The company says it is the first platform of its kind in Africa. Users buy AI tokens to interact with the models, which can perform tasks ranging from helping students study to enabling church pastors to find a Bible verse in seconds.
Econet wants to make Zimbabwe the most AI-savvy country in Africa, matching countries like China, Singapore and the US where up to 70% of citizens use AI on a daily basis.
Econet Group Chief Executive Officer Douglas Mboweni said Zimbabwe already had what the company believes to be the highest level of daily AI interaction in Africa, driven by services such as Yamurai, EcoChat and EcoFarmer.
“Zimbabweans are using AI every day through Econet products like Yamurai, EcoChat, and EcoFarmer. Students are already using AI for study. I don’t know of an African country that has reached our level of AI interaction and adoption; Zimbabweans should be very proud,” he said.
Econet is the only mobile operator in Africa with a multilingual AI helpline offering support in local languages. Its Yamurai service answers questions in English, Shona and now Ndebele, with other languages spoken in Zimbabwe set to be added soon.
