Nigeria’s AI Adoption Surpasses Global Growth Average

A caller study conducted by Arion Research has shown that Nigerian businesses are adopting artificial quality (AI) astatine the highest complaint globally.

The report, ‘The AI Privacy Equation: The Nigerian Model of Responsible AI Adoption,’ shows that 94 per cent of Nigerian organisations present person a dedicated privateness serviceman oregon team, good supra planetary averages. Additionally, it said, 40 per cent of organisations allocate implicit 30 per cent of their IT budgets to privateness protection, signalling that beardown governance is progressively viewed arsenic a competitory vantage alternatively than a barrier.

The study highlights however section businesses embed AI responsibly portion maintaining robust governance standards.

Speaking during Zoholics Nigeria 2025 yearly league successful Lagos recently, Kehinde Ogundare, Country caput of Zoho Nigeria, disclosed that determination volition beryllium 75 per cent lawsuit maturation successful Nigeria successful 2024, underscoring the country’s value arsenic 1 of its fastest-growing markets successful Africa.
‘Nigerian businesses are starring the mode successful liable AI adoption, tempering innovation with privateness safeguards. This mirrors our doctrine of gathering contextual, privacy-first AI models that thrust tangible concern benefits,’ helium said.

The survey highlights Nigerian businesses balancing innovation with privacy. It gathered responses from 386 Nigerian organisations and recovered that 93 per cent person already begun their AI journey, with 31 per cent achieving precocious integration and 26.5 per cent implementing AI crossed aggregate departments. More than fractional of the businesses surveyed person moved beyond experimentation to afloat operational deployment.

Meanwhile, 84 per cent of organisations reported strengthening privateness measures since adopting AI, with two-thirds describing the improvements arsenic significant. Executive enactment is driving overmuch of this momentum, arsenic implicit fractional of the respondents were CEOs oregon elder executives, ensuring AI adoption is backed by strategical decision-making.

The fiscal services manufacture is astatine the forefront of AI deployment, accounting for 29 per cent of survey respondents, with cardinal usage cases including lawsuit work automation (49 per cent), bundle improvement and enhancement (46 per cent), and selling optimisation (32 per cent). Crucially, each these implementations follow a privacy-by-design approach, embedding safeguards into each furniture of innovation.

While AI adoption is accelerating, challenges remain. The study recovered that 37 per cent of businesses cited a deficiency of method expertise arsenic their biggest barrier, followed by privateness and information concerns (35 per cent). To span this gap, Nigerian organisations are investing heavy successful skills development. 69 per cent are prioritising information investigation and interpretation, 53 per cent are gathering AI literacy, and 40 per cent are grooming unit successful punctual engineering for generative AI tools.

This reflects a increasing designation that quality capableness improvement is arsenic captious arsenic exertion acquisition successful driving AI success.

Since the instauration of Nigeria’s Data Protection Act, 65 per cent of businesses study improved regulatory awareness, the study noted that companies are progressively conducting privateness audits (57 per cent), adopting information minimisation practices (57 per cent), and requiring explainability successful AI decision-making (52 per cent).

According to the CEO/chief expert astatine Arion Research, Michael Fauscette, the Nigerian exemplary challenges the content that AI adoption compromises privacy. “When 84 per cent of organisations fortify privateness done AI implementation, it proves that privacy-conscious plan enhances, alternatively than limits, AI outcomes,” helium said.

Consequently, Zoho’s enlargement successful Nigeria is being fueled by increasing request for scalable and unified concern solutions.