Africa Needs Its Own Software Intelligence Infrastructure – Kayode Faturoti

Raheem Akingbolu

As digital adoption accelerates across Africa, businesses face a growing challenge of finding the right software for their unique operating environment. To address this, technology entrepreneur and software engineer Kayode Faturoti founded Liners Africa, an AI-powered software discovery platform built for African enterprises. In this interview with THISDAY, he discusses the future of autonomous AI, trusted software intelligence, and why Africa needs its own software discovery ecosystem. Excerpts.

What inspired you to build Liners Africa, and what problem are you trying to solve?

The idea came from personal experience. Over the years, while building companies like Cardtonic and Breet, we spent an enormous amount of time evaluating software for payments, operations, customer support, marketing, and internal collaboration.

The challenge wasn’t that software didn’t exist. It was that finding trustworthy information was surprisingly difficult. Most recommendations came through WhatsApp groups, LinkedIn posts, or word of mouth, while global software directories were largely built around North American and European markets.

We felt Africa deserved a software discovery platform designed around its own business realities.

What makes software discovery particularly challenging for African businesses?

Businesses here evaluate technology differently because our operating environment is different. Pricing flexibility, local payment methods, regulatory compliance, internet reliability, customer support availability, and regional integrations all influence purchasing decisions.

Many global directories simply don’t provide that context. As a result, companies often rely on recommendations from people they know rather than objective product intelligence. That limits discovery and makes it harder for both buyers and software companies.

Liners Africa is powered by autonomous AI agents. How does that differ from a traditional software directory?

Traditional directories depend heavily on manual updates. Our approach is different because we designed Liners Africa as a fully agentic platform. We have nine specialised AI agents continuously researching products, verifying company information, categorising software, generating content, performing quality assurance, and maintaining the integrity of the directory.

Instead of updating information periodically, the platform continuously improves itself.

Why did you decide to build an AI-native platform instead of relying on conventional editorial processes?

Scale was the biggest consideration. Thousands of software products are launched or updated every year. Maintaining that volume manually would require a very large editorial operation.

AI allows us to automate repetitive research while keeping humans responsible for oversight and quality. The result is a platform that stays current without sacrificing accuracy. For us, AI isn’t replacing expertise. It’s amplifying it.

One of your recurring themes is trust. Why is that so important?

Trust sits at the centre of every purchasing decision. When businesses lack reliable information, they naturally fall back on referrals. There’s nothing wrong with recommendations, but they don’t always expose companies to the best solutions.

Our objective is to create structured verification that gives businesses greater confidence when evaluating software. Good products shouldn’t remain invisible simply because they’re outside someone’s immediate network.

You often describe Liners Africa as moving beyond search into software intelligence. What do you mean by that?

Search gives you information, but intelligence helps you make decisions.

We’re not trying to become another list of software products. We’re building a platform that helps organisations evaluate solutions based on relevance, quality, and suitability for African markets. Ultimately, discovery should reduce uncertainty, not create more of it.

How do you see autonomous AI changing enterprise software over the next few years?

We’re moving from AI as a conversational tool to AI as an operational system. The future belongs to intelligent agents that can research, analyse, verify information, and execute workflows with minimal human intervention.

That shift will transform not only software discovery but also customer service, operations, finance, compliance, and enterprise productivity. We’re only at the beginning of that transition.

Do you think Africa needs its own technology infrastructure rather than relying entirely on global platforms?

Absolutely. Global platforms play an important role, but local context matters.

African businesses operate under different economic conditions, regulatory environments, payment systems, and customer expectations. Those realities deserve dedicated infrastructure built with them in mind.

Localisation isn’t about geography. It’s about relevance.

What is your long-term vision for Liners Africa?

Every technology ecosystem needs trusted infrastructure. Search engines organised the web. Marketplaces transformed commerce. I believe software discovery deserves the same level of innovation.

Our ambition is to become Africa’s trusted intelligence layer for enterprise software, helping businesses make better technology decisions while giving innovative African software companies the visibility they deserve.

If we achieve that, we’ll have contributed to something much bigger than a directory. We’ll have strengthened the foundation of Africa’s digital economy.