Good morning, everyone. First, I want to acknowledge the presence of William Kabogo, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication and Digital Economy. I also acknowledge the presence of all the CEOs who are present, and the chief information security officers, but also CIOs. We had a breakfast with the CEOs this morning, which was very, very interesting, and I'll talk about it in a minute. I also want to acknowledge all the technology partners and sponsors, and acknowledge everyone who is attending here, both online but also physically. Good morning.
Yeah, before I start, I wanted to say, Nick, who has just spoken, was calling me all these things, CBS, most transformational or whatever. We are about to go through a half-year review. I think he's expecting that that will count when we talk about his half-year performance. So well done, Nick.
So anyway, before I start, I wanted to say two things. So when we had the session with the CEOs this morning, we focused primarily on cyber. And I was telling them yesterday, because we are heading towards a half-year, we had a board investment and the board risk committee. And the top risk, so if you have risks in a matrix, likelihood of occurrence and severity, the top risk is cyber, and has been cyber for as long as I've been CEO in this business. So, and I'm sure it's very similar to a lot of organizations that are represented here. And then we talked about the issues that we deal with as far as cyber is concerned.
So that is one of the big reasons why we are here today. The second reason why we are here today is because of AI. I've been to China twice in this calendar year, and it is amazing just what AI is doing to support growth, to support efficiency. You see ports that don't have any human being. Yeah, automated stuff. So of course AI brings a lot of opportunity, but also AI brings a lot of risk. I watched this program on CNN on Sunday by Fareed, and there's none of these programs that doesn't have an AI piece, and what AI will do or not do. So those two topics are going to be very topical, and of course cyber changes materially in an AI world. So, thank you, CS, for attending and gracing this occasion.
So thank you, and good morning all, and welcome to our fourth Safaricom Cyber Security Summit. We are glad to have so many leaders from the government, business, and security community in the room, and I thank our partners and sponsors for making this forum possible. At the United Nations General Assembly this year, AI was one of the central questions. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres observed that power once came from territory, then industry, then finance. But in today's time, power comes increasingly from data, computing capacity, and out of algorithms. He named AI as one of the four greatest threats facing humanity, alongside war, inequality, and climate crisis. This is why our theme this year, 'Harnessing AI, Strengthening Security,' is timely. The debate is no longer whether AI works, but how fast we should move and how firmly we should hold the reins.
How firmly we hold the reins back to make sure that we have the right governance as we undertake to use AI. So let me begin by looking at how AI is shaping our world and why this matters for Kenya. The Kenya National AI Strategy, and I'm sure you'll hear some of it from the CAS, aims to make us a regional leader in research, in innovation, and in application, anchored on data sovereignty, cybersecurity, and ethical oversight. We all know that Kenyans are industrious and early adopters. That shows our appetite for innovation, and it also places on us the responsibility to make that adoption secure, trusted, and productive. One of the clearest signs of the evolving AI landscape is the rise of intelligence infrastructure.
Picture a major football final, and next year we are hosting the Africa football [championship] here in Kenya. Thousands pack stadiums as millions watch on their phones. Fans stream highlights, share videos, call, and make mobile payments simultaneously. A goal can trigger a network traffic surge within seconds. An intelligent network anticipates the spike, shifts capacity from quieter areas, and boosts stadium coverage before calls, videos, or transactions are disrupted. For the fan, the experience simply works, as it should, as customers expect. But behind that reliability is AI analyzing demand and helping the network adapt in real time. That is the shift from static infrastructure to intelligent systems that can anticipate, optimize, and respond before the customer feels the pressure. But as intelligence becomes embedded in critical infrastructure, security oversight and accountability must advance at the same pace.
Let us now look at trust in the age of AI. The same technology that helps defenders detect threats also helps criminals create convincing phishing messages, cloned voices like the one that Nick was describing about me, actually, advertising. So that was not me. In fact, some of my team told me if they were not very close to me, they would never know it wasn't me. Synthetic video and automated attacks at scale. The risk is not AI itself, but AI used without governance, accountability, or clear human oversight. The World Economic Forum noted that the share of organizations assessing the security of their AI tools rose from 37% in 2025 to 64% in 2026. This is encouraging progress, and this also shows awareness, and how much it also shows how much work remains.
Cybersecurity is no longer an IT matter. As I said, most organizations have cyber as one of their most severe risks. It sits in the boardroom, as I described for us as an organization, and I'm sure it is the same for everyone, and indeed I'm sure it is also the same for government. It is a leadership responsibility, and it is increasingly a question of business growth, because customers will only adopt what they trust. Today, on M-Pesa, we process 150 million transactions a day. Yeah. There's no way we can be able to anticipate and actually secure those customers without AI. But by using AI, we are able to actually prevent in real time 94% of any fraud that is about to happen, by classifying, by learning about customer behavior, by learning patterns about where the risk is coming from, and being able to prevent before it happens.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, let me now tell you about how Safaricom is playing its role in leading the country into the tech and AI era. Nearly 20 years ago, Kenyans trusted a mobile phone with their money. You know, I asked people who were there at the beginning, before M-Pesa was born, about the stories of how it started. And of course, success has many mothers, so everyone will claim that they were involved. But one thing that was very, very important: Kenyans trusted that actually you could transfer money on mobile, because there were many other places where it was not that. So over the years, we've continuously improved our platform and services to deliver on our customers' promise of keeping them always on, safe, secure. And where we go wrong or where we don't get it right, we learn from it and keep improving. We are using AI-powered models, as I said, to monitor transaction patterns and to detect and reduce fraud.
Also, through our managed security operations, which we call MSOC, we help organizations secure their connectivity, strengthen visibility, and respond to threats in real time. Customer protection is not added at the end; it's designed into how we build. We just installed a new platform, which we call FinTech 2.0. We were very careful to make sure that we designed in the ability to build secure by design as we went to the next stage. It is designed in how we build platforms, serve communities, and enable businesses, and grow the Kenya digital economy.
Let me conclude by looking at Africa's place in the AI future. The conversation should not be limited to where AI is created, especially in the West, where there's a lot of war on who can create AI quickly, but rather how it is applied to solve real challenges that affect millions of lives every day. So, when you are in China, I think the government has already stated that no one should lose jobs as a result of installing AI, because I think there was a lot of automation that was taking a lot of jobs. I suspect in our Africa, what will happen is it will enable us to be able to serve societies better. So, the greatest opportunities in Africa lie in harnessing AI to transform financial services, healthcare, education, agriculture, and public services, making them more accessible, efficient, and inclusive. Africa does not have to be the consumer of AI. We can become one of its knowledge engines.
As the Secretary-General put it, the danger is not technology, but technology without accountability. Africa's AI future is not decided by who has the biggest model or data center. It will be decided by who earns the most trust. Trust that data is handled with respect, that systems stay resilient, that you can always rely on a bank, you can go into an account without carrying your wallet, and that leaders are accountable when something goes wrong and they do something about it. No single organization can achieve this, because we are as weak as the weakest link. We must work together to set clear standards, to share intelligence, to build capability, and to protect citizens without closing the door to progress. As you take part in today's discussions, I would ask each of you to think of one problem in your organization that AI could help solve, and one step you could take to strengthen trust as you adopt AI. Let us harness AI. Let us strengthen security. And let us build technology that Africa can rely on, because trust is what makes innovation last. Thank you, and I wish you a productive summit.
And you're not clapping for me. It's not often that I ask for a clap, but let me ask for it. So now, you know, today I have to behave very well because I have the CS who runs the ICT ministry. As you know, our regulator falls under the CS, so I have to be very well behaved in case he tells me a few things which I don't want to hear. But I want to acknowledge, CS, you and your ministry for all the support that you continue to provide for creating an environment, especially on the mobile side, that can enable us to invest with predictability, but also can enable us to also innovate into the future and have sessions like this with industry players. And now it is my pleasure to welcome you to address us. Thank you.
