Departmental Papers

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a general-purpose technology with the potential to reshape productivity, labor markets, and growth trajectories worldwide. For sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the central concern is not the risk of technological disruption, but whether countries will be able to adopt, adapt, and scale AI quickly enough to capture its benefits and avoid falling further behind. This paper contributes to the policy debate by applying recent AI-exposure and productivity methods to sub-Saharan Africa, combining country-level estimates with adoption scenarios and evidence from emerging African use cases. At present, the region’s capacity to adopt AI is constrained by structural bottlenecks—unreliable and insufficient electricity, limited digital infrastructure, scarce technical skills, and gaps in regulatory and institutional capacity. However, AI gains are within reach if countries move quickly to strengthen the foundations for adoption.