What's Next powered by Deloitte - Omeshnee Naidoo on AI readiness for African CIOs

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: It's a great pleasure to welcome to what's Next Omeshni Naidu, who's the CIO program leader for Africa at Deloitte. Uh, it's wonderful to have you with us, Omeshni. How are you doing?

Speaker A: Very good, Aki. And it's absolutely awesome being here with you today and looking forward to chatting with you.

Speaker B: Likewise, likewise. Listen, this Deloitte Tech Trends 2026 report is absolutely fascinating. The insights that have uh, that you guys have got from talking to uh, many businesses and leaders, understanding exactly where the trends are going in technology and where leadership is going globally is absolutely fascinating and you're getting some amazing insights. What does it reveal, uh, according to your analysis about African CIOs and what do they need to hear most about what's coming out of this report?

Speaker A: Uh, yeah. Thanks Aki. So first of all, The Deloitte Trends 2026 report is 17 years in the making. So it's 17 years of research that's been coming together. As you've said, it's uh, global leaders. So we take surveys across the world from not just our clients, the market research in general. And so it is fascinating and I always enjoy the read every year. This year's tech trends report came out right at the start of the year, uh, in January. And I think some of it is we'll always say we understand and we know it's always been there biggest trend coming out. So probably not unexpected is the AI trend from um, an African CIO perspective. Perspective. I think that when reading the trends, I think there is great opportunity for African CIOs to really think about the opportunities to leapfrog. I think in the past we've always been talking about the digital divide and how, you know, Africa needed to spend lots of, lots of uh, economic money behind digital infrastructure in order to try to keep up with technologies. And I think what we've seen from a trends point of view that, that actually there's great opportunity now to rather than have to do that, to be able to leapfrog with accessibility that is now worldwide available, to be able to now access technologies that in the past seemed quite difficult to be able to do. So I think this whole thing of your legacy technology that was so important, that needed a lot of capital infrastructure to come behind it is one of the opportunities that I think African CIOs can lean in on and truly leapfrog in terms of technology technologies into the future.

Speaker B: Look, it's absolutely fascinating and you 100% right, um, modernization is Everything. And we saw, we saw many, uh, you know, quite a bit of that. You know, when, when Covid started, when everybody had to work remotely, organizations started modernizing. And I think it's really been accelerated intensely by AI. And this is putting a tremendous amount of pressure, I imagine, on African CIOs, the, this pressure to modernize to, to, to, to, to do this fast because the pace is really, uh, it's quite extraordinary. But at the same time you're finding that resources are tight. So we, you know, where does the report say the smart money comes first? Because you know, these guys under pressure, they got to modernize, they uh, got to answer to the board and they, the board wants to see a return. So that pressure is there constantly, isn't it?

Speaker A: Absolutely. Um, and totally agree with you on that one. I do think, though you spoke about being smart. I think the smart African CIOs, they actually won't buckle under this pressure of, you know, what they need to do in terms of just modernizing for the sake of marginizing. I think the smart African CIOs will be wise in terms of thinking very carefully about how they're going to operate in the constrained environments that they are going to continue to have, even going forward. I think if we look at the economic outlook from an African perspective, environments are not going to suddenly just change from that perspective of having truckloads of cash available for investments into African technologies. However, with that said, I think that it's actually the way that technology is moving is actually showcasing the. That that past of needing heavy capital infrastructure has now changed in the way that technology solutions now works. And that's a great benefit for Africa in terms of being able to scale at pace, but also scale for the right things. And so bringing business value through the scaling process rather than having to create that upfront investment and then getting the scaling opportunities later on. And so I think that heavy capital investment, really something that truly benefits Africa in that it's not needed as much as it was in the past. If I just give you, you know, two examples that comes to mind. The first one is just on infrastructure itself. So in the past, you know, you needed to have the big data centers that each organization was trying to build for themselves. We know that cloud has come about and if done right, organizations can really add business value through thinking about business applications now use cases into their environment. That would not have been possible in the past from a ROI and a business case perspective. So, you know, proof of concepts coming in much easier, much faster without needing this heavy capital intensivity is great, I think from an Africa perspective. And then I think the second one which, um, which I guess is a bit contentious but is around connectivity. So we know that, uh, connectivity has always been a Africa challenge. However, we're seeing now the likes of the satellite connectivity, you know, Starlink slowly coming in, but starting to come in probably much faster outside of the South African environment. But broadly in the Africa context, the accessibility from a connectivity point of view just creates a whole new dynamic. Right. It creates accessibility in terms of volume of people that you now have available to you. Um, so you know, financial services industry and retail services industry has so much more opportunity when there's accessibility to a mass market. And we're starting to see the improvements already. Um, we've seen M Pesa being successful in the past, but we starting to see the fintech industry really start to take off. Because when you have accessibility to, you know, over a billion people with mobile access and connectivity now coming together, you know, it definitely uh, can add a lot of value. So I think being smart in terms of investments is still right. Um, and I think that both the AI technologies and the cloud infrastructure technologies, along with the improvement of connectivity, uh, is putting us in the right direction.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the one conversation uh, that I find absolutely fascinating uh, is when you start talking about AI. Everybody knows it's something that, you know, you've got to do because it unlocks value. We've got to do it because our competitors are doing it. We've got to invest in AI, our competitors are doing it. It's going to unlock tremendous value. But when you talk to CIOs and C level suites executives, those pilots, those AI pilots are all over the place. But the real returns are quite rare. You don't often hear of, wow, we've got this incredible pilot that we did. We've had an incredible return on investment. What does the report identify as that one thing or a few things that are actually blocking this progress? Because clearly something is going wrong somewhere that you're not realizing the value of the investment you're putting in in AI. And let's be honest, people are spending a tremendous amount of money on AI.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So from a report perspective, I guess statistically what we've picked up is that, well, two facts. The one is it does seem that for larger organizations, that whole view of AI being experimental, so a lot of proof of concepts that we were seeing that those organizations are starting to move out of that now and we're starting to see that they are Seeing, uh, value in some of the AI use cases that they are bringing together and they're thinking about AI more strategically in terms of building now proper value, roadmaps of where it makes sense to actually put AI in. And we're seeing them starting to move out of this experimentation and mature a bit in terms of being more, uh, forceful around where it makes sense to put AI in. With that said, uh, statistically in this last year, based on surveys, uh, data that we have of the AI use cases, typically at the moment we're only seeing about 11% of AI deployments being successful. And so that is still a very low percentage. And so a lot of cases are still failing in terms of AI experimentation. And why, um, and I guess like, uh, you asked, why is that? You know, why are we seeing organizations not getting their return on investment? I think major themes that we've seen coming out in terms of why that's the case is number one is around data itself. So we're seeing a lot of AI projects actually being built off poor data. So poor data quality, um, you know, data that's very siloed, unstructured, ungoverned. And so as a result of that, it's creating very confident AI tools, but like completely inaccurate, if I want to call it hallucinations coming out. And so the actual, uh, information is resulting in AI that is not actually creating the right outputs. The second thing that we're seeing is that a lot of organizations are feeling the peer pressure. Um, so the CEO asking the CIO, why don't we have AI, why aren't we doing something in this space? Um, CIO's feeling that pressure of that. And as a result almost taking a tech first approach, you know, and as opposed to really thinking through why and asking the question of what problem are we trying to solve for. Um, you know, we're seeing organizations going, well, what AI tool should we use? Um, you know, I think that some of it is just what's available to them and everyone's just experimenting with the shiny new tools that's available as opposed to problem solving. And so this tech first approach approach is saying we've got AI, but actually it's not helping us. It seems to be the outcome. And then I think lastly for me, one of the factors that I think a lot of organizations are probably, it's, I call it the elephant in the room. An underlying issue around AI is the fact that there's a human element when we ignore the user experience that employees have. There's a lot of times that employees just won't use the AI. And we are picking up that staff. They're perceiving AI as a threat, threat to their jobs. They're not clear on what it means for them. And so there's this quiet resistance, um, that is sitting there in terms of AI. And so user adoption, uh, a lot of times is not taking place as fast as we, uh, would expect it to be because I think organizations are not actually addressing that elephant in the room. And they're in some ways therefore, um, not seeing the users behind it adopting the AI technologies. So yes, I guess that's my take around, uh, AI.

Speaker B: Yeah. But you know what's interesting, Omeshni, is that, you know, as, as with everything that evolves in the world. I mean, you just look at, uh, you know, CAS, for example, you know, a decade ago, 15 years ago, when everything started to become automated, and now that there's AI, the actual role of a ca, for example, has adapted and they become a lot more strategic in an organization today. Now this report describes a new breed of technology leader emerging. And I imagine with all of these tools that people have around them, you've got to adapt, you've got to lead in a different way. Is Africa producing that leader? Uh, and what does it take to do that?

Speaker A: Interesting question, Akim. I think, um, CIOs over the years have seen a lot of evolution in terms of who they're being asked to be in the organization. From being the strong technology leaders of the past that we saw and having really strong technical experience was where we saw them in the past, to evolving into what we used to then say is the business leader alongside the tech leaders. So needing to understand the business and how the business works, uh, working with the business leaders. And I think now where we are at in terms of a CIO and expectation of a CIO is kind of, um, in the Deloitte world, we call it this need for having four faces. So the one is being a strategist, uh, is coming a lot more strongly these days for CIOs and in terms of the need and the ability to really think about the bigger picture of the organization, to not just be driving technology thinking, but to drive it alongside really understanding both corporate strategy, but also understanding where technology in that industry is going to and what is really disrupting these organizations and bringing therefore its own, as a cio, your own lens around technology disruption and how that's impacting the corporate strategies or how it could help influence and help take those particular organizations to the next level. So I think rather than just being like a business operator, uh, it's now really becoming much more in the strategy space. And then I think the second, I think change we're seeing is for a CIO to be much more of a catalyst. So as opposed to kind of just being this enabler alongside business, it's actually sitting with the business and, and being proactive in driving innovation, really thinking about what does digital transformation at this next level look like and then really facilitating the change as opposed to just being a bystander of the change. So, so I think, you know, when I spoke about the four faces, a lot more of a strategist, a lot more of a catalyst. And then I think the must haves is still expecting them to know the technology, so to be a technologist and also to keep the business and keep the lights on from an operator perspective. So I think those are for me kind of the four areas with the strategist and the catalyst. Uh, we're seeing kind of being pushed up the rank in terms of expectations of a cio.

Speaker B: Fascinating. Now, uh, cyber security is one aspect of, of a business that, you know, frightens most CIOs and most, most people at that C level sweep. Because if you look at the global risks every business today faces, it's not, um, you know, productivity, it's not, uh, um, you know, keeping up with the pace of technology. It is about cyber and that is the biggest risk. You see this coming up, up over and over, over the last decade. And of course AI is placing another unique spin to this because it's staying ahead of cyber security professionals in many regards. So cyber security is where AI is simultaneously the biggest threat and the most powerful defense at the same time. What does the report say? African CIOs need to prioritize when it comes to this regard.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I think cybersecurity, uh, like you said, AI is both good, bad and ugly behind it. Um, you know, I think the good that AI is bringing is that the actual cybersecurity tools itself we are seeing, ah, that they are actually now putting in AI on those cybersecurity tools, which is helpful in terms of, you know, threat detection. So from that perspective, I think African CIOs need to stay abroad, rest uh, on the cyber tools that are out there. Um, I know it is always this question of, I call it, how much insurance do you take in terms of, uh, when is it enough versus not enough. And therefore it is important that CIOs understand their own technology, architecture and environments and what it is that is sitting in their own landscapes to be able to answer that question, uh, for their organization. AI. With all of the proliferation of AI tools that we're seeing these days, definitely the threat landscape has grown. And I uh, don't think, you know, there's ever going to be a space where an organization is not going to have necessarily a cyber attack. It's about how well prepared they're going to be in order to face that cyber attack that they get. And how do they make sure that the crown jewels are protected in terms of their financial systems behind it as well as the critical and sensitive data. So you know, I think prioritizing that for CIOs continues to be the standard way of working. It's what CIOs have done in the past. And I think that that methodology frameworks very much still applies today. But it is, does require, um, you know, levels of diligence and architectural governance in order to make sure that organizations and CIOs limit the threats to their organizations. But this is a tough one for CIOs because I do think it's always how much insurance do you have?

Speaker B: You know, there are so many aspects. I mean we can talk about the Deloitte Tech Trends Report 2026 for, for hours because there are just so many different insights, um, reading through it, that just come to mind as I'm talking to you. But from your perspective, uh, anybody that's watching this, particularly African CIOs, if there's one thing that stands out for you personally, that they should stop doing that one thing and start doing another thing, after reading this report and listening to our conversation, what would it be in your, from your perspective, Omeshni?

Speaker A: I think that the one thing that as African CIOs that we need to stop doing is to believe that we have limitations. I think that uh, we have been so preconditioned around not having the legacy infrastructure data costs being too high, um, all the negativity around why we can't do something in the digital space that it almost becomes easy as a CIO to say that it's not possible. And I think that that is one mindset change that I would encourage African CIOs to not have. There is so much of new technology that is out there. And if you as an African cio, change your thinking from a mindset point of view as well as get your organization and have an open mind around exploring and uh, really being creative around the new technologies that has come up, I think rather than being fearful or kind of almost, you know, having that mindset change. I think we will be so surprised as to how much there is that we can actually do within the constrained environment that we are in, um, and how much we can achieve. I think those African CIOs that are doing that are telling amazing stories. Um, and we are seeing some very positive outcomes of technology maturity in environments that we would think is just not possible and that comes from creativity from our own African CIOs. And so I encourage the uh, innovation thinking and mindset and that culture mind shift change.

Speaker B: Fascinating. Omeshni, I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you for your time. Omeshni Naidu is the CIO program leader for Africa at Deloitte, uh, unpacking the report, the Deloitte Tech 10 Tech Trends Report 2026 and there are some really fascinating insights. So thank you very much for sharing your insights. Omeshni. Appreciate your time.

Speaker A: Thank you. Aki, lovely chatting with you too.