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Kenya to publish AI strategy by May 2025
Bharti Enterprises founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal speaks during a keynote session at the 2025 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain on March 3, 2025.
Kenya targets to publish a national strategy on artificial intelligence (AI) by May 2025, as the country races to plug loopholes amid the fast-growing popularity of the technology.
John Tanui, the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of ICT and Digital Economy, said that the strategy would be modelled on global best practices.
“We expect to have the AI strategy within a month or two. The programme has gone through all the necessary preparation and public participation and the draft is now ready. We expect it to launch in a few weeks,” he said on the sidelines of the 2025 Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.
AI technology allows computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving. The technology can be applied to many sectors and industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, mining, and the military.
“These are tools that we can utilise as a country and as a region, and we do not want to be left behind. We’ve seen initiatives that have made it possible for even smaller companies now to adopt AI and deploy models quickly with limited resources,” Mr Tanui said.
Kenya presently lacks a legal framework for the deployment of AI, a gap that has raised fears about the safety of the technology. These rules aim to set out obligations for providers and users, based on the various risks associated with different AI technologies.
AI relies heavily on vast amounts of personal and sensitive data, and the growing adoption of the new technology continues to fuel fears about data privacy and security.
Globally, the existing AI regulations have significant limitations. For instance, there are no clear, common set of definitions of different types of AI technology in current regulations across jurisdictions.
In January, the government published a draft of the Kenya National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025–2030, which seeks to put in place a governance framework to guide the use of AI in various sectors across the country.
“Public trust in AI technologies and their developers is also currently lacking, leading to skepticism about the intentions behind AI deployment,” the draft states. “There is also a need to ensure that AI development respects human rights and aligns with Kenyan values.”
The draft Kenya National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025–2030 targets to roll out a governance framework that will promote the use of the technology in sectors such as agriculture, security, healthcare, education, and public service delivery.
The private sector is leading the adoption of the new technology in Kenya, with experts saying that the transparency of AI solutions is critical to driving its adoption across the country’s different socio-economic segments.
An analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI disruptions.
IMF, however, notes that the lack of requisite infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the benefits of AI in most developing countries including Kenya, raises the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality among nations.
