Africa's next competitive advantage isn't AI. It's commercial capability

Across Africa, businesses are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, digital platforms and digital skills. The assumption is simple: better technology will produce better business performance. The evidence increasingly suggests otherwise. 

Recent research by McKinsey shows that only 39% of organisations worldwide report enterprise-wide bottom-line impact from AI, while only a small minority attribute significant EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) impact to their AI investments, despite substantial spending on software, infrastructure and digital transformation. 

African enterprises are likely to face the same challenge: adoption may be accelerating, but measurable returns still depend on whether technology is translated into business-model, customer and operational value. 

The problem is not a shortage of technology. It is a shortage of organisations able to translate technical capacity into commercial results. 

This is the real tech-hype trap. Too many organisations still treat AI as another software upgrade instead of using it to rethink how decisions are made, customers are served and markets are won. 

The businesses creating a lasting advantage are doing something different. They are developing commercial capability: the ability to combine technology, customer insight, market understanding and commercial judgement to create sustainable business value. 

Technology expands what an organisation can do. Commercial capability determines whether any of it matters. 

The seniorised entry-level shock 

This shift is already reshaping the labour market. PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, based on more than one billion job advertisements, found that AI-exposed junior roles are now seven times more likely to require traditionally senior capabilities such as leadership and strategic thinking. 

At the same time, so-called ‘seniorised’ entry-level roles have grown by 35% since 2019. Artificial intelligence is not simply changing how work is done. It is changing how careers begin. 

Routine work that once served as a professional apprenticeship: drafting reports, analysing data, preparing presentations, and basic coding, is increasingly performed by generative AI.  

As those entry-level tasks disappear, organisations expect graduates to contribute to commercial judgement much earlier in their careers. 

Execution is becoming abundant. Judgement remains scarce. 

That raises an important question for both employers and higher education: if technical execution is increasingly automated, what capabilities will differentiate tomorrow’s professionals? 

Find out more about why Africa’s next competitive advantage is commercial capability, written by Dr Helena van Wyk of the IMM Graduate School, in Issue 2 2026 of Strategic Marketing for Africa, the thought-leadership magazine of the African Marketing Confederation.  

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