Stakeholders Push AI-First Strategy to Boost Competitiveness for Enterprises, SMEs
Business leaders and technology experts have renewed calls for stronger national commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) as a key driver of Nigeria’s future competitiveness.
The call was made at the 2025 edition of the AI Forum Nigeria, held at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, following a full day of strategic dialogue, high-level sessions and practical insights themed “Goodbye Digital Transformation, Hello AI First Business.”
Delegates examined how organisations can move beyond traditional digitisation to adopt AI-first structures capable of delivering higher efficiency, stronger decision-making and sharper market differentiation.
Alaa Dalghan, CEO of Cognit DX, delivered the keynote address with a firm message on the global shift towards AI-driven business models. He challenged Nigerian organisations to move “beyond experimentation” and begin building enterprise-wide architectures “that scale with intelligence.”
Obafemi Banigbe, CEO of T2Mobile, contributed insights during the CEO and Business Leaders Panel, stressing disciplined leadership, effective execution and foundational process redesign as prerequisites for an AI-first approach.
Lars Christer Johannisson, CEO of Rack Centre, underscored the critical role of data centres in enabling AI at scale. He highlighted how reliable infrastructure, local cloud capacity and resilient data ecosystems will determine how fast enterprises can deploy artificial intelligence across operations.
Abideen Yusuf, General Manager for Microsoft Nigeria and Ghana, offered a forward-looking perspective on enterprise adoption trends, underscoring trusted platforms, talent skilling and responsible AI frameworks. He reminded organisations that sustainable transformation requires both technological capability and governance maturity.
Andie Oluwafemi Moyan, CEO of CitiData Centre, emphasised data credibility as the foundation of intelligence, arguing that no organisation can pursue AI ambition without strengthening data integrity, accessibility and real-time processing capacity. His message resonated with delegates across banking, consumer markets and the public sector.
Other key voices included Kehinde Ogundare, Country Manager for Zoho Corporation Nigeria, who shared practical guidance on how small, medium and large enterprises can adopt AI without complexity or excessive cost. He reinforced that the AI-first path “is not reserved for large organisations alone” but open to any business willing to start with focused, strategic use cases.
The forum ended with a shared commitment to deepen cross-sector collaboration to strengthen data infrastructure, governance standards, talent capability and responsible adoption practices aligned with Nigeria’s long-term transformation agenda.
Organised by OLAK Events Management, the forum brought together senior decision-makers from business, technology and government to interrogate how artificial intelligence is shaping the next chapter of enterprise transformation in Nigeria.
