Shaping Africa’s Industries with AI, Health Tech

Fresh voices from the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, heath technology and communications are beginning to shape industries from across Africa, writes Emma Okonji

For many, it might be difficult to begin to imagine how Artificial Intelligence (AI), health tech, and the media intersect.

For obvious reasons, AI, driven by the big multi-billion dollar companies, has been marketed as a futuristic productivity tool and a super-intelligent personal assistant that can significantly boost productivity. However, the over-promotion of AI as a productivity enhancer, or miracle tool, appears to have buried other intricate values that this technology, when used appropriately, could unlock values with the potential to solve or help solve one of the world’s biggest problems- inadequate healthcare.

In Africa, a continent of more than 1.5 billion people, nearly half of its population does not have adequate access to healthcare. Most countries on the continent allocate less than the WHO’s recommended 15 per cent of a nation’s budget to healthcare. But underfunding is not the only issue plaguing Africa’s health systems.

According to WHO data, there are more than 10,000 patients to one doctor in some countries, well over the global standard of 1,000 to one doctor. The insufficiency of doctors has led to numerous issues, from pregnant women not receiving the medical attention they deserve during delivery to doctors’ exhaustion from working long hours amid little pay. The question therefore is how can AI help solve Africa’s pitiable healthcare challenges?

AI Assisting African Doctors

Earlier this year, Google unveiled an upgraded version of its experimental medical chatbot, the Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer (AMIE), which marks a significant leap in diagnostic capabilities.

By analysing rashes photographed with smartphones and other medical imagery, AMIE can diagnose and interpret associated medical conditions with superior diagnostic accuracy compared to human primary-care physicians.

Speaking about the potential use of AMIE, Director of Stanford University’s Centre for Digital Health, Eleni Linos, notes that systems integrating images and clinical information “bring us closer to an AI assistant that mirrors how a clinician actually thinks.”

This could be of immense help to the severely understaffed medical sector in Africa. Thankfully, some Africans are already at the forefront of developing AI-powered solutions that alleviate the challenges the continent’s health sector faces.

A typical example is Nigerian Egemba Chinonso Fidelis, popularly known as Aproko Doctor, who, until launching AwaDoc, had been using his content to break down medical situations through humour and storytelling. With AwaDoc, the health influencer is taking it a step further, ensuring that Africans have direct access to quality medical advice right from their mobile phones.

An AI-powered healthcare platform accessible via WhatsApp, used by over 51 million Nigerians, as ‘AwaDoc’ can be used for symptom checking, medical advice, and as a reliable alternative to self-diagnosis. This makes preliminary healthcare quick, dependable, and accessible by leveraging the widespread familiarity and penetration of WhatsApp, bypassing the need for new apps.

In Senegal, a former AI research scientist at Google and Facebook, Moustapha Cissé;  former CEO of MTN Guinea, Papa Sow; and former Chief Medical Officer for AXA, Hosam Mattar, successfully raised $10 million for Kera Health, an AI-powered integrated platform that digitizes core services such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), pharmacy and prescription data, and lab results.

Qme, an Egyptian B2B SaaS startup that builds AI-powered tools to improve customer service processes in healthcare, is on a mission to replace manual phone-based booking in hospitals with a more digitalised appointment system.

Using Qme, founded by a former executive at Orange Egypt, Maged Negm, who has raised $3 million, patients can book doctor consultations, lab tests, or procedures digitally via web, app, or kiosk.

Although WideBot AI, founded in Egypt but now based in Saudi Arabia by Mohamed Nabil, offers a wide range of services by building enterprise-level language solutions for corporations and government institutions in the Middle East and North Africa, it has also raised $3 million to develop AQL Mind, an Arabic large language model. As part of its healthcare services, WideBot helps automate patient query responses, gather patient feedback, and simplify omnichannel appointment booking.

There are numerous other AI startups in the health sector solving some of the continent’s most pressing problems. However, the reality is that for these solutions to have impact and reach the African population, firms must be able to communicate their mission and vision, as well as their use cases and benefits, in the most comprehensible way possible.

For AwaDoc, Aproko Doctor is utilising his storytelling expertise across his various social media channels to communicate and sell the AI-powered service. However, others may have to rely heavily on communicators — content creators, storytellers, journalists, and creatives — to convey their products and services to the African population.

Bridging the Gap

There is a gap between storytellers and AI companies that has to be bridged.

While AI-powered firms are rising across Africa, there is still a disconnect between these innovators and the storytellers, content creators, and journalists who should be translating the technology for everyday people.

Are today’s storytellers aware that, despite skyrocketing adoption of AI, consumers still have less trust in products or services labelled as ‘AI-powered’?

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, describing a product as using AI actually lowers a customer’s intention to buy it.

In a recent interview with CNN, Dogan Gursoy, one of the study’s authors and the Taco Bell Distinguished Professor of Hospitality Business Management at Washington State University, stated: “We looked at vacuum cleaners, TVs, consumer services, and health services. In every single case, the intention to buy or use the product or service was significantly lower whenever we mentioned AI in the product description.”

Hence, there is a growing belief that a gap still exists between this new technology and the storytellers whose responsibility it is to communicate to the public how AI should be used, especially in sensitive areas like healthcare.

That is precisely why TalkComms, a Pan-African hub created to empower the next generation of communication leaders across the continent, is hosting its inaugural summit on November 29, 2025, at Emerald Hall, The Zone, Gbagada, in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub.

According to the convener, Oluwasegun Ogundairo, the summit is expected to help students and young professionals understand not only the skills needed to use AI and other emerging technologies but also how to communicate these technological advances to the people in ways that foster trust and adoption.