Industry leaders, policymakers and technology stakeholders meeting at the 15th annual Connected Africa Summit in Nairobi have called for the removal of structural and regulatory frictions to unlock seamless connectivity across Africa, according to a statement issued on Tuesday.

The summit is being held at the Edge Convention Centre and is positioned as a forum for advancing Africa’s digital transformation agenda, with speakers arguing that progress will depend on stronger cross-border policy alignment and collaboration among governments and the private sector.

In remarks during a panel discussion, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said deeper cooperation between the public and private sectors is necessary to scale connectivity and digitise services across the continent.

“To unlock Africa's full potential, we must deepen collaboration between governments and the private sector. By working together, we can create enabling policies, invest in the right infrastructure and accelerate public sector digitisation in a way that is inclusive, scalable and impactful for millions of Africans,” Ndegwa said.

The call comes as East African economies accelerate investment in digital infrastructure and online public services, while grappling with fragmented regulations across borders that can raise the cost of rolling out regional platforms and services. Kenya, as a regional technology and financial services hub, has been central to these discussions, particularly around payments interoperability, data governance, licensing, and spectrum policy.

Safaricom said it used the summit to showcase capabilities of its “converged services” model, which brings together its Enterprise Business, Financial Services, Public Sector Digitisation & Transformation (PSDT), and Technology teams. The company said the structure is intended to support government-facing digital solutions that can be deployed at scale.

Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya Prof. Kithure Kindiki also urged greater use of public-private partnerships, adding that citizen participation should be part of digital transformation efforts.

“The public sector does not have a monopoly on resources. In order to achieve inclusion in the digital market, we must collaborate with the private sector and the citizens themselves,” Kindiki said.

For Kenya’s business landscape, the summit’s focus on harmonised policy and seamless connectivity has implications for telecoms, fintech, logistics, and cross-border trade, where consistent rules can lower compliance burdens and enable firms to expand digital services across multiple markets. Industry executives have repeatedly argued that uneven regulation can slow investment decisions and delay deployment of shared infrastructure.

Safaricom, which is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, said it serves more than 60 million customers across Kenya and Ethiopia. The company reported that its total economic value was estimated at KES 1.1 trillion (US$8.5 billion) for the 12 months to March 2025, and that annual revenues were close to KES 388 billion as at March 2025.

The operator also cited M-PESA’s role in financial inclusion, saying the mobile money platform helped lift financial inclusion in Kenya to 84.8% in 2024 from 26.7% in 2006, and generated more than KES 161 billion in revenue in FY25.

Safaricom said the summit continues into its third day on Wednesday, with speakers expected to push for renewed commitment and coordinated action on connectivity, policy alignment and a shared vision for Africa’s digital future.

Safaricom Plc and Indonesia’s Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) have signed a partnership to collaborate on artificial intelligence (AI) use cases spanning customer experience, digital financial services and network investment planning, the companies said in a joint statement issued on March 17, 2026 in Barcelona.

Under the agreement, the two telcos said they will work on “advanced AI-driven decisioning” to support more proactive customer engagement, including predictive care to detect and resolve network issues before customers are affected, more relevant product recommendations for prepaid users, and conversational AI tools for customer support.

The partnership also includes collaboration around mobile money and broader digital financial services. IOH said it will draw on Safaricom’s operational experience in mobile financial services—built around M-PESA—to strengthen “resilience, security, and personalization” of digital financial journeys, including AI-powered fraud and risk management and improving payment reliability during peak periods.

The announcement comes as telecom operators increasingly deploy AI to manage network complexity, improve service quality and protect digital payments from fraud. For Kenya, where mobile money infrastructure is deeply embedded in everyday commerce, AI-driven fraud detection and reliability initiatives are closely watched by banks, merchants and regulators seeking to reduce losses and maintain customer trust in digital transactions.

In addition to customer and fintech-related initiatives, the companies said they will explore AI-led insights to improve how IOH plans and invests in its network. The statement referenced “CNX-based Smart CAPEX” and the use of AI to make capital expenditure decisions more demand-driven, with a focus on “high-growth and underserved areas.” No financial terms of the partnership were disclosed, and no monetary figures were provided to convert into Kenyan shillings.

Vikram Sinha, President Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, said the collaboration is intended to translate strategy into deployable outcomes. “This partnership with Safaricom is about moving from aspiration to action,” Sinha said. He added that the companies are focused on “delivering innovations that customers can genuinely feel from smarter networks and safer digital transactions to more personal and intuitive experiences,” according to the statement.

Peter Ndegwa, Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom PLC, said the partnership brings together the firms’ respective strengths. “Our partnership with Indosat is built on our respective strengths, their bold AI‑native transformation and our deep experience in building Africa’s most trusted digital and financial ecosystem,” Ndegwa said. He added that the collaboration aims to support “smarter networks and safer transactions” and contribute to “inclusive digital economies,” according to the statement.

Industry-wide, the initiative signals growing cross-market collaboration between operators seeking to industrialise AI across core telecom functions—customer care, network operations and digital financial services—rather than limit AI deployments to pilots. In Kenya and the wider East African market, the emphasis on fraud and risk management reflects sustained pressure on mobile money providers to strengthen controls as transaction volumes grow and fraud techniques evolve.

The companies also said they will collaborate on talent and leadership development to support AI transformation. Planned initiatives include building “AI-fluent executives,” developing “Business–AI Translator roles,” and enabling cross-organisational learning and short-term secondments to speed up skills transfer.

Next steps and timelines for specific deployments were not provided. The firms said the partnership will focus on practical use cases, suggesting pilots and phased rollouts may follow as the parties identify areas where AI tools can be implemented across customer operations, digital finance and network planning.