NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 14 – African businesses have an opportunity to take a leading role in adopting agentic artificial intelligence (AI) rather than simply catching up with more developed markets, according to cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Binance Director of Government Relations and Strategy for Africa Larry Cooke said the continent’s experience with mobile money and other digital technologies provides a foundation for businesses to adopt AI agents quickly where there are clear use cases.
“This is genuinely one of Africa’s best shots at leading rather than following,” Cooke said.
“We have done it before. Mobile money is the clearest example anywhere in the world of a continent skipping a legacy stage entirely and building something better in its place. Agentic AI can follow the same pattern, and the businesses already pulling ahead are the ones who know exactly what they want an agent to do, not just that they want one.”
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can perform tasks or make decisions with limited human intervention, rather than simply responding to individual prompts.
Industry research projects that more than 40 percent of enterprise applications will incorporate task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than five percent in 2025. Separate surveys of enterprise leaders indicate that 72 percent are already using or testing AI agents.
In South Africa, the AI agents market is projected to grow at an annual rate of more than 52 percent through 2033, highlighting the potential for increased adoption across African markets.
Binance has itself expanded into agentic AI through Agent OS, a developer platform launched in August that allows AI applications to connect to trading, market data, wallet, payment and on-chain functions through user-defined permissions.
The platform allows individual agents to operate through segregated subaccounts rather than having unrestricted access to a user’s full holdings.
“Agent OS addresses the fragmentation developers face when building agentic finance applications across crypto and traditional markets,” said Jeff Li, Binance’s Vice President of Product.
“It gives developers and traders the standardised interfaces they need to deploy AI-driven strategies safely.”
Cooke said the broader lesson for African businesses was the importance of defining the role of an AI agent and establishing safeguards before deployment.
“The point isn’t the specific product. It is the principle. Markets that trade twenty-four hours a day don’t get the luxury of a slow pilot phase,” he said.
“It is key to ensure that permissioning and clear boundaries get built in from day one, not added in later. That is a genuine head start that any African business can borrow regardless of which tools they end up using.”
He said Africa’s rapid adoption of technologies such as mobile money and peer-to-peer digital finance demonstrated the continent’s ability to embrace new technologies when their practical applications are clear.
However, Cooke identified education as a key factor in ensuring that the adoption of AI agents translates into meaningful benefits for businesses and consumers.
“The biggest barrier to agentic AI in Africa was never going to be the technology,” he said. “It is making sure people actually understand what the agent in front of them is doing, whether that is someone using an app to manage their money, a student getting help with their homework, or a small business owner automating their bookkeeping.”
“Get that right and this continent has everything it needs to lead on this in the same way it already has on mobile money.”
Binance said it expects the adoption of agentic AI to create opportunities for African businesses as they seek to automate processes and develop new digital services.
