Technology
Nigeria Leads in Responsible AI Adoption as Zoho Sees 75% Customer Growth
By Dipo Olowookere
Nigerian businesses in Nigeria are beginning to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI), using the technology to execute some of their operations, a study by Zoho has revealed.
On the sidelines of its 2025 annual user conference in Lagos on Monday, the global technology platform said from its survey, it observed that 93 per cent of Nigerian organisations have already begun their AI journey, with 31 per cent achieving advanced AI integration across the organisation, and 26.5 per cent implementing AI across multiple departments.
“We continue to invest in Nigeria as businesses here accelerate their adoption of technology to grow and scale. The latest study around AI and Privacy proves that Nigerian businesses are leading the way in responsible AI adoption, as they temper the new technology with privacy measures.
“This mirrors Zoho’s philosophy of building contextual and privacy-first AI models that can help businesses realise tangible benefits.
“We infuse our AI solutions—from conversational and prescriptive to agentic and generative—with business context so that it can provide organisations with decision intelligence,” the Country Head for Zoho Nigeria, Mr Kehinde Ogundare, informed newsmen at the event.
In the study titled The AI Privacy Equation: The Nigerian Model of Responsible AI Adoption, it was found out that the massive adoption of AI in the country was driven by executive commitment at the highest levels.
Further, it was revealed that Nigerian businesses are not just adopting AI, they are embedding it responsibly, with 94 per cent now having a dedicated privacy officer or team, a figure well above global averages.
In fact, 40 per cent of the organisations allocate more than 30 per cent of their IT budgets specifically to privacy protection, reflecting the belief that strong governance is a competitive advantage rather than constraint.
Also, nearly 65 per cent of organisations say regulatory consciousness has increased since the introduction of Nigeria’s Data Protection Act. Companies are conducting regular privacy audits of AI systems (57 per cent), implementing data minimisation practices for AI training (57 per cent), and requiring explainability of AI decisions (52 per cent).
This proactive governance positions Nigerian businesses not only for domestic compliance but also for competitiveness in international markets.
Business Post reports the research was conducted by Arion Research for Zoho, with 386 respondents in Nigeria.
“The Nigerian model challenges the conventional wisdom that AI adoption requires privacy trade-offs. When 84 per cent of organisations strengthen their privacy measures through AI implementation rather than weakening them, it demonstrates that privacy-conscious design can actually enhance AI outcomes.
“Nigerian businesses are proving that robust governance isn’t a constraint on innovation, it’s a competitive advantage that builds customer trust and creates sustainable AI implementations,” the chief executive of Arion Research, Mr Michael Fauscette, said.
Meanwhile, Zoho has recorded a significant growth in Nigeria, with its customer base soaring by 75 per cent in 2024, helped with key products like Zoho Workplace (enterprise email and collaboration suite), Books (accounting software), Campaigns (all-in-one powerful Email and SMS marketing solution), and Zoho One (all-in-one suite that brings together over 55 business applications).
Key sectors contributing to this expansion are IT hardware and IT related services, financial services, energy, utilities and resources, manufacturing, non-IT professional services, real estate and construction, media and entertainment, education and retail.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
One of the players in the Nigerian gaming industry, Secure Electronic Technology (SET) Plc, has appointed Ms Leticia Otomewo as its acting secretary.
This followed the expiration of the company’s service contract with the former occupier of the seat, Ms Irene Attoe, on January 31, 2026.
A statement to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday said Ms Otomewo would remain the organisation’s scribe in an acting capacity, pending the ratification and appointment of a substantive company secretary at the next board meeting.
She was described in the notice signed by the Managing Director of the firm, Mr Oyeyemi Olusoji, as “a results-driven executive with 22 years of experience in driving business growth, leading high-performing teams, and delivering innovative solutions.”
The acting secretary is also said to be “a collaborative leader with a passion for mentoring and developing talent.”
“The company assures the investing public that all Company Secretariat responsibilities and regulatory obligations will continue to be discharged in full compliance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act, applicable regulations, and the Nigerian Exchange Limited Listing Rules,” the disclosure assured.
Meanwhile, the board thanked Ms Attoe “for professionalism and contributions to the Company during the period of her engagement and wishes her well in her future endeavours.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Russian government on Thursday confirmed it has blocked the WhatsApp messaging service, as it moves to further control information flow in the country.
It urged Russians to use a new state-backed platform called Max instead of the Meta-owned service.
WhatsApp issued a statement earlier saying Russia had attempted to “fully block” its messaging service in the country to force people toward Max, which it described as a “surveillance app.”
“Today the Russian government attempted to fully block WhatsApp in an effort to drive people to a state-owned surveillance app,” WhatsApp posted on social media platform X.
“Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” it said, adding: “We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”
Russia’s latest move against social media platforms and messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram comes amid a wider attempt to drive users toward domestic and more easily controlled and monitored services, such as Max.
Russia’s telecoms watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has accused messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp of failing to comply with Russian legislation requiring companies to store Russian users’ data inside the country, and of failing to introduce measures to stop their platforms from being used for allegedly criminal or terrorist purposes.
It has used this as a basis for slowing down or blocking their operations, with restrictions coming into force since last year.
For Telegram, it may be next, but so far the Russian government has been admittedly slowing down its operations “due to the fact that the company isn’t complying with the requirements of Russian legislation.”
The chat service, founded by Russian developers but headquartered in Dubai, has been a principal target for Roskomnadzor’s scrutiny and increasing restrictions, with users reporting sluggish performance on the app since January.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian startup, Decide, has emerged as the fourth most accurate Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent for spreadsheet tasks globally, according to results from SpreadsheetBench, a widely referenced benchmark for evaluating AI performance on real-world spreadsheet problems.
According to the founder, Mr Abiodun Adetona, the ranking places Decide alongside well-funded global AI startups, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Mr Adetona, an ex-Flutterwave developer, also revealed that Decide now has over 3,000 users, including some who are paying customers, a signal to the ability of the startup to scale in the near future.
SpreadsheetBench is a comprehensive evaluation framework designed to push Large Language Models (LLMs) to their limits in understanding and manipulating spreadsheet data. While many benchmarks focus on simple table QA, SpreadsheetBench treats a spreadsheet as a complex ecosystem involving spatial layouts, formulas, and multi-step reasoning. So far, only three agents rank higher than Decide, namely Nobie Agent, Shortcut.ai, and Qingqiu Agent.
Mr Adetona said SpreadsheetBench measures how well AI agents can handle practical spreadsheet tasks such as writing formulas, cleaning messy data, working across multiple sheets, and reasoning through complex Excel workflows. Decide recorded an 82.5% accuracy score, solving 330 out of 400 verified tasks.
“The result reflects sustained investment in applied research, product iteration, and learning from real-world spreadsheet workloads across a wide range of use cases,” Mr Adetona told Business Post.
For Mr Adetona, who built Decide out of frustration with how much time professionals spend manually cleaning data, debugging formulas, and moving between sheets, “This milestone highlights how focused engineering and domain-specific AI development can deliver frontier-level performance outside of large research organisations. By concentrating on practical business data problems and building systems grounded in real user environments, we believe smaller teams can contribute meaningfully to advancing applied AI.”
“For Decide, this is a foundation for continued progress in intelligent spreadsheet and analytics automation,” he added.
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