Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT and Meta AI continue to raise big questions about ethics, job security, and privacy. In spite of the uncertainties, Africans are putting these tools to work, and how they’re doing it depends a lot on which generation they were born into. Three African millennials and six Gen Zs from Ghana, Kenya, Benin Republic, Botswana, Nigeria, and South Africa, share their experiences about these tools.
Digital natives
Lisa Lena, a millennial Kenyan who works at her college’s International Student Office in Germany, “runs to ChatGPT to get answers” for class or office tasks. She explains that AI has become her “go-to place” for answers and that it has replaced the way she uses search engines like Google. “I do this because it is more personalised, the answer will come with a greeting, starting with: ‘Hello Lisa’. I no longer have to search through lists of articles to find an answer and neither do I have the time to do so,” Lena says.
Millennials, otherwise known as Gen Y, are characterised by their pursuit of efficiency, preference for convenience, and reliance on digital tools to save time. Lena is no exception.
“Nowadays I place more focus on actually living life, that means that I want to finish work and have a good three hours after work for wellness, leisure, and connection with people,” she explains. To her, these are the things that “make life meaningful” and AI has freed up her the time to pursue them.
Another aspect of these technologies that makes life more enjoyable is the ability to multitask seamlessly. In Nairobi, Kenyan-American millennial Josephine Opar, who is a communications officer and student, uses AI for both work and leisure. “AI has made multitasking more enjoyable for me,” Opar says. “ I like listening to my notes while I’m walking, so I don’t have to choose between exercising and revising.” It is no surprise, then, that she uses AI tools “at least once every two days.” Opar also uses virtual assistants like Siri to open apps on her phone and convert her notes into audio while she’s driving.
Generation Y might enjoy the pleasure and comfort that comes with using these tools to carry out tasks, but they are not ignorant of the downsides that come with them.
Ephraim Modise, a millennial senior copywriter in Botswana, though sold on AI’s upsides, is clear-eyed about its limits. He uses ChatGPT and Grammarly every day to refine work tasks, make plans, and ask “Google-like questions.” His confidence is reflected in his bold “any roadblocks [in using AI technology] can be ChatGPT-d,” but he reveals that it was not always so. He was hesitant to use AI at first because of hallucinations.
AI hallucinations, which are incorrect or “nonsensical” (according to IBM) results that AI models generate, are not new to frequent AI users.
“Hallucination was a concern for me because my line of work requires accuracy. You learn to manage the hallucination by double-checking the output,” Modise explains.
Despite the concerns about AI, many millennials are open to adapting to the technology. For instance, Lena is not concerned about AI-induced job insecurity, though people are losing their jobs to AI.
“Things that are being done are going to be more efficient,” she says. “ If, in the process, people lose their jobs, then there is nothing we can do about that. For example, in my field, there is a lot of talk about AI replacing a lot of things and a lot of people are resistant. And the rest of us are like, tell us what to do and we will do it, and when we are too old to catch up, we will just retire. As long as we try our best to flow with the wave and look for things, I can do work better with this new technology,” she says.
What unites these millennial users isn’t blind enthusiasm; it is intentionality. They use AI to lighten workloads, but they also know when to ask better questions and apply their human judgment.
The digitally fluent generation
Gen Zs are known for their digital fluency, adaptability to new technologies, and scepticism toward unverified information. They have grown up with the internet and are highly comfortable navigating digital tools, but they are also critically aware of misinformation and privacy concerns.
For people like Kofi Boadu-Peprah, a Ghanaian Gen Z lawyer, AI is helpful, but it’s not trustworthy enough to take charge of things. “I do use ChatGPT but not frequently,” he says, adding that AI makes research easier as a lawyer, but he is not reliant on it because it “can be very misleading, especially in Law where information given is jurisdictional.”
Boadu-Peprah says that his major concerns with AI are privacy-related, especially as “AI keeps upgrading and its scope of abilities widens.”
While Boadu-Peprah is more concerned with AI’s evolving scope and privacy risks, others in his generation worry about its socioeconomic consequences.
In South Africa, Lebohang Mashiloane, a Gen Z ICT Library Intern, shares that her major concern is that “people will be without jobs and the poor will be poorer.” “In the job market in South Africa, more than half of the youth are unemployed, and those who are working will no longer be needed,” Mashiloane says.
To alleviate the risk of more job losses, Mashiloane recommends that “the youth must upskill themselves with AI-related courses.”
Mashiloane warns of another growing risk: “People aren’t aware of their digital footprint. They forget that the internet doesn’t forget.”
The risks or concerns do not stop her from using AI tools. She describes AI as “almost like a friend.” She uses ChatGPT, Meta AI, and Grammarly for work, school, and social activities. Her Gen Z friends use AI features on their cameras because “they are obsessed with using their gadgets to their full capability.” She adds: “The AI features instantly edit the images so they don’t have to waste time editing. Other cool features they like are face recognition, where a picture is captured when someone smiles.”
Elisa Capololo, a Gen Z systems analyst from Angola, reflects a similar balance of enthusiasm and caution. “If we rely on AI to think for us entirely, it can become problematic. Over-dependence may lead to a decline in our critical thinking skills, potentially making us mentally lazy,” she says.
Though she does not use AI for every task, Capololo admits that it helps save time in the few instances where she uses it. Among her other Gen Z friends, Capololo says she has noticed a growing trend in vibe coding, which, simply put, is the use of AI to generate code.
Nairobi-based Gloria Ondieki, a Gen Z backend developer and tour operator, uses AI to help her identify code errors. “Fixing code errors and bugs is no longer a three-day gruelling task. It takes a few clicks to know where I went wrong,” she says.
Tertius Adjaoke, a Gen Z computer science master’s student from Benin Republic studying in Nigeria, uses Grok to debug code and generate pseudo codes for assignments. For academic tasks, he uses tools like ChatGPT to explain concepts like Dijkstra’s algorithm in simple terms or to provide a Python implementation.
Creator economy
While Adjaoke leans on AI for coding, others like Grace Mwangi, a Kenyan student and content creator based in Dubai, are tapping into AI for creative expression.
As a YouTuber and Instagram content creator, Mwangi uses AI tools to edit videos and develop characters. ChatGPT, in particular, helps her generate catchy reel scripts and hashtags that boost engagement.
Ondieki doesn’t use hers for social media, but for real-time social interaction. Like Mashiloane, Ondieki calls generative AI her “best friend” for “curating unique social experiences” as a tour operator. Nevertheless, Ondieki, like her African Gen Z peers, fears that AI is coming for people’s jobs. “The people who will survive in the job market,” she says, “are the ones who will align their careers with AI, master it, and use it to their advantage.”
Jobs aside, Ondieki remarks that her friends “have fed AI, especially ChatGPT, information to create the perfect friend to have conversations with.” This is a trend not far from how many in their generation are turning to AI as a digital therapist.
But the fact remains this: No matter how long or how well AI can hold a conversation, it will never replicate the human warmth and empathy that only people can provide. “AI will never replace the human touch. It will forever rely on us to function,” Ondieki admits.
African Gen Zs know their way around AI tech, but they’re not blindly trusting it. They see how AI can enhance productivity in their studies, side hustles, and day jobs, but they’re also quick to spot the potential downsides. This generation is asking the right questions and the hard part might be figuring out how to use AI without losing themselves in it.
Generation Y or Z worry about AI’s dark side. Hallucinations. Over-reliance. Job displacement. Boadu-Peprah warns about losing the ability to think. Even the most enthusiastic users know that AI might be powerful, but it is still flawed and very much shaped by how humans use it.
And maybe that’s the real story here: the future of work, education, and creativity in Africa won’t be shaped by one generation’s use of AI, but by how humans amplify their skills and strengths with technology innovation.
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