AI is evolving from generative tools to autonomous agents, now African businesses face skills shortages as the tech giants shift focus from traditional coding bootcamps to âAI readinessâ â but are we preparing our youth for the right future?
There was a nightmare scenario revealed in SAPâs latestĚý: the technology goalposts have shifted, once again, leaving the continent caught between digital transformation ambitions and the harsh reality of skills shortages that are already undermining business operations.
âA hundred percent of the African organisations that we surveyed said that they saw an increase in demand for AI skills in 2025, and just around 50% of that said they saw a significant increase in the demand for those AI skills,â explains , interim managing director for Southern Africa at SAP.
The impact isnât theoretical â itâs immediate and painful. Nearly 90% of survey responses report that AI skills shortages are already causing âdelays in implementations, failed innovation initiatives, an inability to take on new work, and loss of clients.â
For South African companies, the situation is particularly worrying â 98% say lacking AI skills undermines their innovation capabilities, making them more vulnerable to competitive disadvantage.
The agentic age changes everything
But even as organisations scramble to address these shortages, the AI landscape is rapidly shifting beyond the generative AI tools that dominated 2023 and 2024 keynotes, toward âagentic AIâ â autonomous systems that can plan, act, and adapt independently.
âCopilot was like version one of AI for enterprises with the generative stuff itâs moved beyond, so youâll see everyone talks about agents â and the secret of agents is that itâs autonomous,â explains Robin Fisher, head of EMEA growth markets at Salesforce, describing how these systems represent a fundamental departure from reactive AI tools toward proactive, goal-directed agents.
This shift is forcing a complete rethink of what âAI readiness skillsâ even are. The traditional focus on coding â the bread and butter of coding academies across Africa that spawned under the weight of the last future-focused skills wave â is giving way to something far more nuanced.
Ursula Fear, Salesforceâs senior talent programme manager, warns that â39% of all of our core skills, the global workforce core skills, are to be changed by 2030â. She now says we should all be âlifelong learnersâ, dedicating âa minimum of about 10 hours a weekâ to staying relevant.
The skills that matter now extend far beyond âones and zerosâ coding. Fisher suggests that future AI readiness includes âthe ability to maybe even go back to some of those things like psychology or linguistics because itâs around making agents humanâ â skills crucial for ensuring AI agents operate with empathy and effective communication.
The new rules of AI readiness
This evolution is reshaping how major tech companies approach youth empowerment in Africa. Both Salesforce and its upstart Indian competitor Zoho are moving away from partnerships with coding bootcamps toward more holistic AI readiness programmes.
Salesforce has launched rural interventions, including a pilot partnership with Absa in what Fear describes as a âtier three townâ (sheâs talking about Dundee), where they discovered qualified individuals â including computer science graduates and marine biologists â who had returned home due to a lack of urban job opportunities. The goal is building âdigital hubs in tier three townsâ that can scale Salesforce solutions to businesses as small as a local âmeat producerâ.
âWe 100% believe that the only way that we are going to be able to solve this problem is through collaboration,â Fear continues, describing partnerships with workforce development organisations like Collective X that focus on âwork-integrated learning â the application of itâ rather than just certifications.
Zoho, meanwhile, is implementing what it calls âtransnational localismâ â a philosophy that blends global reach with local engagement. The company is still riding the learn to code rollercoaster with Code Intelligence in Khayelitsha and Bench Bites for âtrain the trainer programmes,â bringing students to their Cape Town offices and hiring directly from these programmes.
But even the low-cost CRM hero acknowledges the fundamental shift under way. âWeâre trying to not hire any more developersâ internally, explains Hyther Nizam, president of Zoho Middle East and Africa, instead aiming to ârepurpose them to some other thingsâ while equipping existing developers with AI tools like copilots.
Wake-up call for the African dream
For South Africa specifically, these shifts come against a backdrop of sobering economic realities. With youth unemployment at 62%, Andrew Bourne, regional manager for Zoho Southern Africa, stresses the critical need for young South Africans to âthink globalâ because âwe actually wonât have enough jobs in South Africa for the unemployedâ.
This global perspective is reflected in Zohoâs pricing strategy, which is basically offering âfirst world technology at a third world priceâ with 25% subsidised pricing for the rand, maintained consistently for five years.
Their newĚý, designed for solopreneurs at R99 a month, aims to build âdigital skills literacyâ among one-person businesses.
The challenge isnât just about individual skills development, itâs about systemic change. Despite 94% of African organisations now offering IT training monthly (up from 74% previously), budget allocation for training has actually decreased from 14% to 7% of IT and HR budgets, with no organisation spending more than 10%.
âWe need to allocate a budget for upskilling our existing workforce,â Pillay insists, warning organisations to âprepare for an AI-related skills gap in 2025â and âunderstand the impact that a lack of skills will have on your business, your employees, and your customers.â
What South Africaâs AI skills crunch means for you
If youâre a young job seeker, a business owner, or just trying to future-proof your career, this isnât some distant tech debate; itâs your next paycheque.
AI isnât optional any more.ĚýWhether youâre in finance, farming, or fashion, businesses are under pressure to adopt AI, but thereâs a huge shortage of local talent.
Your CV needs more than just coding.ĚýAI readiness is about more than programming. Skills in communication, business strategy, ethics, and even psychology are now just as valuable.
Training is free, if you know where to look.ĚýCompanies like Salesforce and Zoho are offering open-access training, internships, and rural digital hubs.
Jobs arenât disappearing, theyâre shifting.ĚýData entry might be automated, but someone still needs to guide the agents. AI is a tool, not a takeover. The more you understand it, the more irreplaceable you become.
Think beyond our borders.ĚýWith SAâs youth unemployment pushing 60%, the real opportunity might be global. Local startups and students are already getting remote gigs with international firms. The internet doesnât care about your postcode.
Bottom line:ĚýIf you wait for government policy to catch up, youâll be left behind. Start skilling up now; even ten hours a week can change your trajectory.
ĚýDisproving the replacement theory
Both CRM companies are quick to reject the narrative that AI will simply replace human workers, even though theyâre selling agentic AI.
âAt no point is it creating unemployment,â Fisher argues. âIn the same way, agents are going to make certain things probably redundant, data capture, data analysis, those jobs will grow, right? Because AI can do the data analysis, but then itâs going to create new jobs that are more powerful because you have context.â
Nizam says Zohoâs internal experience suggests a more measured reality: AI provides â30% to 40%â productivity improvement, not the â5x to 10xâ often promised, partly because âreading the AI-generated code is a nightmare.â
The reality is that the stakes couldnât be higher â 60% of African organisations view AI skills as critical to their success, but 100% expect to face skills gaps. The companies getting it right are those recognising that in an agentic AI world, the most valuable skill might not be writing code, but understanding how to make machines work better with humans.ĚýDM
This article first appeared in the .
