African Mobile Operators Move AI From Strategy to Deployment, GSMA Report Finds

Africa’s mobile operators are deploying AI across a growing range of internal functions — including predictive maintenance, network optimization and AI-driven customer service — according to the Mobile Economy Africa 2026 report published this week by the GSMA. The report cited an Airtel initiative launched in Uganda in April 2025, which the telco described as Africa’s first AI-powered spam alert service, using machine-learning models to detect and flag fraudulent SMS traffic in real time.