IDC South Africa CIO Summit 2025

IDC South Africa CIO Summit 2025

Architecting an AI-Fueled Business

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Architecting an AI-Fueled Business

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The last two years have seen unprecedented AI-driven innovation, boosted by the experimentation and early adoption of generative AI in South Africa. C-suite executives and technology leaders across industries have been pursuing a cloud led business transformation and making significant investments in the IoT, data management, and analytics spaces, with an increasing focus on using AI to deliver incremental business value. Indeed, IDC’s EMEA Emerging Tech Survey revealed that 56% of organizations in South Africa are already using AI, and another 26% are planning to do so in the next two years, highlighting its substantial impact in the country. This all promises an exciting, yet unpredictable future.

Business and technology leaders in South Africa are facing countless opportunities and challenges on multiple fronts as they try to build strategies aimed at leveraging the full potential of AI. In order to be fully prepared, they must also establish long-term strategies to ensure the fastest, most cost-effective, and fully trusted AI implementations, including the deployment of GenAI technologies at scale across business processes and the IT stack. Only then can their organizations successfully take on the challenges of an AI world and benefit from improved business agility and innovation while effectively mitigating the numerous associated risks.

The 2025 edition of the IDC South Africa CIO Summit will feature a stellar lineup of C-suite executives, influential analysts, industry thought leaders, international speakers, and market-leading solution providers. Together, they will discuss AI’s role as the leading technology enabler of business strategy and the endless potential it provides enterprises across the region. This premier gathering of ICT experts will examine the industry’s hottest topics, trends, and challenges, providing essential guidance on adapting to an unpredictable business landscape, implementing new business models, and scaling massively in the AI-powered digital economy.

This summit will also highlight local success stories and unique challenges faced by businesses in South Africa, emphasizing the country’s position as a rising hub for AI innovation in Africa.

The last two years have seen unprecedented AI-driven innovation, boosted by the experimentation and early adoption of generative AI in South Africa. C-suite executives and technology leaders across industries have been pursuing a cloud led business transformation and making significant investments in the IoT, data management, and analytics spaces, with an increasing focus on using AI to deliver incremental business value. Indeed, IDC’s EMEA Emerging Tech Survey revealed that 56% of organizations in South Africa are already using AI, and another 26% are planning to do so in the next two years, highlighting its substantial impact in the country. This all promises an exciting, yet unpredictable future.

Business and technology leaders in South Africa are facing countless opportunities and challenges on multiple fronts as they try to build strategies aimed at leveraging the full potential of AI. In order to be fully prepared, they must also establish long-term strategies to ensure the fastest, most cost-effective, and fully trusted AI implementations, including the deployment of GenAI technologies at scale across business processes and the IT stack. Only then can their organizations successfully take on the challenges of an AI world and benefit from improved business agility and innovation while effectively mitigating the numerous associated risks.

The 2025 edition of the IDC South Africa CIO Summit will feature a stellar lineup of C-suite executives, influential analysts, industry thought leaders, international speakers, and market-leading solution providers. Together, they will discuss AI’s role as the leading technology enabler of business strategy and the endless potential it provides enterprises across the region. This premier gathering of ICT experts will examine the industry’s hottest topics, trends, and challenges, providing essential guidance on adapting to an unpredictable business landscape, implementing new business models, and scaling massively in the AI-powered digital economy.

This summit will also highlight local success stories and unique challenges faced by businesses in South Africa, emphasizing the country’s position as a rising hub for AI innovation in Africa.

Expert Perspectives

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IDC Keynote: The AI Moment: Strategies for CIOs in South Africa

AI, predicted to have a $19.9 trillion impact on the global economy by 2030, is reshaping economic landscapes, creating new revenue streams, and redefining competitive advantages. This session will provide unique insights and analysis drawn from IDC’s extensive study of CIOs and key decision-makers across South Africa. It will provide a deeper understanding of current and planned AI strategies and use case road maps, covering key topics such as AI-ready data, unified governance, fit-for-purpose and scalable infrastructure, and AI talent.

Jonathan Tullett | IDC

Associate Research Director, IT Services Sub-Saharan Africa

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What people say

Global influencers shared powerful stories of how they confronted challenges — and created opportunities from them

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Head – Digital Transformation, KEC International, an RPG Company

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Head – Digital Transformation, KEC International, an RPG Company

Event Gallery

Our Partners

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Venue

Global influencers shared powerful stories of how they confronted challenges — and created opportunities from them

Sandton Convention Centre

Sandton Convention Centre
161 Maude St, Sandown, Sandton, 2196

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Knowledge-hub

Partner Spotlight Top Digital Transformation Challenges CIOs Must Solve in 2025

As digital transformation (DX) becomes a business imperative, CIOs are under pressure to lead change while balancing cost, risk, and impact. Here are six top challenges modern enterprises should be addressing in 2025:

1. Insufficient Budget

Balancing innovation with cost effectiveness is a significant challenge. CIOs can mitigate project delays by strategically allocating resources, such as adopting a balanced approach between in-house and outsourced teams. CIOs can further mitigate the high cost of software delivery by adopting platforms that accelerate delivery and reduce the total cost of ownership.

Learn More

Partner Spotlight Smart Conversations, Smarter Decisions: How AI Chatbots Are Changing the Game

Across Africa, businesses are growing rapidly, but so are the challenges. From navigating regulatory changes to meeting rising customer expectations, companies need tools to help them stay ahead. One such tool is the AI-powered chatbot.

Unlike traditional chatbots that follow a script, AI chatbots understand and respond in ways that feel more natural. They don’t just repeat pre-set answers — they learn from data, respond in real time, and improve over time. It’s the difference between ticking boxes and holding a conversation.

At ADG, we’ve witnessed firsthand how powerful this can be.

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Partner Spotlight Predictive Modeling in Real Time: AI’s Strategic Role in ITFM

In 2025, IT financial management (ITFM) will undergo a defining transformation — evolving from retrospective cost reporting to predictive, real-time decision-making. At the heart of this evolution lies artificial intelligence. As IT leaders contend with growing complexity across hybrid and multicloud environments, the need for speed, foresight, and precision in financial planning has never been greater.

Blake Davidson
MagicOrange
Chief Operating Officer
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Partner Spotlight The Rise of AI Agents Signals the Growing Importance of Data Privacy

Data privacy is becoming increasingly complex and critical as organizations turn to AI to revamp their operations and processes. Among these advancements is agentic AI, designed to autonomously execute tasks without human intervention and act with agency.

For all its benefits, agentic AI’s reliance on vast amounts of personally identifiable data raises significant privacy concerns and fuels growing consumer mistrust in how organizations manage personal information. According to a recent Cloudera Agentic AI Survey, data privacy tops the concerns of respondents with 53% citing it as the main barrier. This has the potential to worsen when agentic AI hits the mainstream adoption phase in critical sectors like healthcare and financial services where personal data is prized at a premium.

Tariq Salameh
Cloudera
Solutions Engineering Manager, Emerging Markets
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Analyst Spotlight The AI Everywhere Era in the Public Sector

AI and GenAI are having an increasingly pervasive impact on government — across missions, use cases, processes, and systems — in the Middle East and beyond. The disruptive impact of these technologies, compounded by geopolitical volatility, technical debt, digital sovereignty concerns, elevated citizen expectations, and regulatory changes, will require government leaders to approach innovation holistically. The acquisition and implementation of new technologies will not be enough. Realizing the benefits of AI, cloud, and industry platforms will require revisiting governance, risk management, culture, and the building of competencies to accelerate innovation.

Massimiliano Claps
IDC
Research Director
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Partner Spotlight Unleashing Efficiency: The Synergistic Relationship Between AI and Low-Code Process Automation

The power and promise of AI have led many government and business leaders to adopt an “AI Everywhere” mindset. AI and low-code process automation have a synergistic relationship, where they both enable and enhance the capabilities of the other.

Ayman El-Hattab
Nintex
Regional Vice President, Emerging Markets
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Partner Spotlight The Future of AI-Powered Automation: Beyond Efficiency to Transformation

In the rapidly evolving technological landscape, AI-powered automation stands at the threshold of a profound transformation. While today’s implementations focus primarily on efficiency and cost reduction, tomorrow’s AI automation will fundamentally reshape how organizations operate, innovate, and deliver value.

Augmented Intelligence: The Human-Machine Partnership

The future of automation isn’t about replacing humans but augmenting their capabilities. This “augmented intelligence” paradigm represents a collaborative relationship where AI handles routine, data-intensive tasks while humans focus on creative problem-solving, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence. This symbiotic partnership will unlock unprecedented levels of productivity and innovation across industries.

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Stay tuned for exciting news!

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