--- title: Only a quarter of SA firms are running AI for real description: A survey of over 100 South African technology decision makers finds that while more than half plan to move AI workloads to the cloud within 18 months, only... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Only a quarter of SA firms are running AI for real | daily.dev og:description: A survey of over 100 South African technology decision makers finds that while more than half plan to move AI workloads to the cloud within 18 months, only... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9SEqapY4K.png og:image:alt: Only a quarter of SA firms are running AI for real og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Only a quarter of SA firms are running AI for real **[TechCentral](https://daily.dev/sources/techcentral)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A survey of over 100 South African technology decision makers finds that while more than half plan to move AI workloads to the cloud within 18 months, only about a quarter currently run AI in production. Most organisations are stuck piloting AI without trusting it for real business use. Obstacles cited include integration with legacy systems, security and compliance gaps, and cloud skills shortages, rather than raw compute capacity. The survey also touches on POPIA compliance gaps, hybrid cloud adoption, and Microsoft Azure's dominance over AWS among South African firms. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What percentage of South African companies are actually running AI in production versus just piloting it Only about a quarter of South African organizations run AI in production handling real business work like customer queries or transactions. The largest group, around 43%, is still piloting AI in test environments without trusting it for real business use. A further 16% have plans but haven't started, and the rest have no AI plans, based on a survey of just over 100 technology decision makers. _Track how organizations are actually deploying AI in production by following adoption trends on daily.dev._ ### Which cloud provider is more popular among South African businesses, Azure or AWS Microsoft Azure leads with roughly 79% of South African organizations using or considering it, compared to 53% for Amazon Web Services. These figures combine live deployments with providers merely under evaluation, so the gap on production workloads alone is likely narrower. About one in five companies are also weighing local providers like Liquid Intelligent Technologies or Xneelo. _Compare cloud provider adoption trends like these on daily.dev before making an infrastructure decision._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [African firms are all in on cloud and AI – on paper, at least](https://daily.dev/posts/african-firms-are-all-in-on-cloud-and-ai-on-paper-at-least-4en6bnqmp) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two-thirds of small firms using AI now build their own tools, Pax8 finds](https://daily.dev/posts/two-thirds-of-small-firms-using-ai-now-build-their-own-tools-pax8-finds-n7ugaqgxe) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [CIOs say AI adoption is moving faster than they can manage](https://daily.dev/posts/cios-say-ai-adoption-is-moving-faster-than-they-can-manage-v9sfsda7y) · The Register · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Bridging the operational AI gap](https://daily.dev/posts/bridging-the-operational-ai-gap-knfesinoz) · MIT Technology Review · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The real cloud challenge isn’t adoption – it’s doing it well](https://daily.dev/posts/the-real-cloud-challenge-isn-t-adoption-it-s-doing-it-well-4ebxjh1k5) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#cloud](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud), [#azure](https://daily.dev/tags/azure) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Only a quarter of SA firms are running AI for real","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k"},"datePublished":"2026-08-12T12:09:40.106Z","dateModified":"2026-08-12T12:10:02.389Z","description":"A survey of over 100 South African technology decision makers finds that while more than half plan to move AI workloads to the cloud within 18 months, only...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1fab953ea22b72d34e1b049b43e4a7fb?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1fab953ea22b72d34e1b049b43e4a7fb?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCentral","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCentral","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--RsqLDZrL--/f_auto/v1717745297/logos/techcentral","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/techcentral"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"cloud,azure","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCentral","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/techcentral"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Only a quarter of SA firms are running AI for real"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/only-a-quarter-of-sa-firms-are-running-ai-for-real-9seqapy4k#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What percentage of South African companies are actually running AI in production versus just piloting it","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Only about a quarter of South African organizations run AI in production handling real business work like customer queries or transactions. The largest group, around 43%, is still piloting AI in test environments without trusting it for real business use. A further 16% have plans but haven't started, and the rest have no AI plans, based on a survey of just over 100 technology decision makers. Track how organizations are actually deploying AI in production by following adoption trends on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Which cloud provider is more popular among South African businesses, Azure or AWS","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Microsoft Azure leads with roughly 79% of South African organizations using or considering it, compared to 53% for Amazon Web Services. These figures combine live deployments with providers merely under evaluation, so the gap on production workloads alone is likely narrower. About one in five companies are also weighing local providers like Liquid Intelligent Technologies or Xneelo. Compare cloud provider adoption trends like these on daily.dev before making an infrastructure decision."}}]} ```