Today, Salesforce published its AI Fluency Playbook, a practical guide for businesses to prepare their workforce to confidently collaborate with AI to give employees agents and drive business impact at speed and scale.

Why it matters: As companies look to become an Agentic Enterprise, success will depend on their workforce’s ability to harness and apply agentic AI in their daily work. Businesses that build AI-fluent workforces will drive greater growth and position themselves to attract top talent and become the best place to work. And it’s not just businesses that benefit – employees who use AI daily report 64% higher productivity, 58% better focus, and 81% greater job satisfaction.

Go deeper: The AI Fluency Playbook is built from Salesforce’s own experience deploying AI agents as Customer Zero for Agentforce. Today, Salesforce employees are collaborating with agents and 85% say they feel confident using AI tools to drive productivity in their daily work – a 16% increase year over year. The results are clear: In just one year, Agentforce in Slack saved employees over 500,000 hours, Engagement Agent worked over 190,000 leads with the sales team, and Service Agent handled 2+ million support requests for the customer service team.

AI agents are fundamentally redefining the workplace by automating repetitive, mundane tasks and augmenting the creative and strategic potential of every worker. However, simply deploying the technology is not enough; to truly transform daily operations and achieve superior business outcomes, employees must be equipped with the specific knowledge and tools required for seamless human-agent collaboration.

To bridge this gap, organizations can cultivate comprehensive AI fluency through a three-pillared approach: AI Engagement, which focuses on building employee sentiment and cultural confidence; AI Activation, which ensures consistent integration of AI into daily workflows; and AI Expertise, which develops the essential human and technical proficiencies needed to drive successful adoption at scale.

What customers are saying: “We’re focused on the most important skills that are needed for today and for the future,” said Ali Bebo, Chief Human Resources Officer at Pearson. “Today is all about learning agility – human skills like learning, adaptability, communication, and critical thinking are so important for the era of agentic AI.”

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have introduced new rules that will ensure faster refunds for failed airtime and data purchases, following rising consumer complaints over debits without value.

Under the new rules, refunds are expected to be completed within 30 seconds, except where a transaction remains pending, in which case the resolution can take up to 24 hours.

The new framework, contained in a statement issued by NCC’s Head of Public Affairs, Ms Nnenna Ukoha, on Thursday, targets unsuccessful transactions linked to network downtime, system failures and human errors that affect subscribers nationwide.

According to the statement, the guideline was developed after months of joint engagements involving telecom operators, banks, value-added service providers and other industry stakeholders.

The NCC said the framework brings the financial and telecommunications sectors up to speed on how failed transactions are handled and resolved.

“These engagements were prompted by a rising incidence of failed airtime and data purchases, where subscribers were debited without receiving value and experienced delays in resolution.

“The framework represents a unified position by both the telecommunications and financial sectors on addressing such complaints.

“It identifies and tackles the root causes of failed airtime and data transactions, including instances where bank accounts are debited without successful delivery of services,” she said.

Under the framework, Ms Ukoha said mobile network operators and banks are bound by a service level agreement that clearly defines their roles in transaction processing and refunds.

She emphasised that operators are also required to notify customers by SMS on the status of every airtime or data transaction.

The rules also address erroneous recharges to ported lines, incorrect airtime or data purchases, and instances where transactions are made to the wrong phone number.

On her part, the Director of Consumer Affairs at the NCC, Mrs Freda Bruce-Bennett, said the framework also introduces a central monitoring system to improve oversight.

She said the dashboard will be jointly managed by the NCC and the CBN to track failed transactions, refunds and breaches of service timelines in real time.

“We are grateful to all stakeholders, particularly the CBN and its leadership, for their tireless commitment to resolving this issue and arriving at this framework,” she said.

The official said failed top-ups are among the top three complaints received by the commission, adding that implementation of the framework is expected to begin on March 1, subject to final approvals and completion of technical integration by all operators and banks.

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian government is in advanced talks with Google for a new undersea cable to strengthen the country’s digital connectivity and resilience.

The country wants to augment existing undersea links with Europe, said the chief executive of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, as per Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Mr Inuwa said this was necessary at this time, calling Nigeria’s current reliance on cables that follow the same path “a single point of failure.”

Google earlier this year said it plans to expand its digital presence significantly in Africa with the development of four new strategic subsea cable connectivity hubs in the north, south, east, and west regions of the continent.

Already, Google is investing $2.1 million to accelerate Nigeria’s artificial intelligence (AI) growth, aiming to create one million digital jobs and bolster the country’s expanding technology economy.

This is aligned with Nigeria’s National AI Strategy, which is expected to play a meaningful role in the nation’s broader digital transformation. Projections indicate that AI could contribute up to $15 billion to Nigeria’s economy by 2030.

The fund will support partnerships with local organisations. To achieve these aims, the funding will support partnerships with local organisations working in digital skills development and cyber security.

The investment further signals global trust in Nigeria’s technology sector and underlines the nation’s role as a leader in Africa’s digital transformation. As new opportunities emerge, Google believes it support is set to help shape Nigeria’s economy and its place on the global technology stage.