Insight

AI is accelerating knowledge work. The real test for CIOs is whether it is also strengthening human capability.

As AI token prices collapse, boards often confuse cheap raw intelligence with a cheaper business.

Sasol’s IT digital and innovation enablement lead Bramley Maetsa and Microsoft’s senior account technology strategist Phumlani Nhlapo explore why the industry's Open-AI coalition changes the sovereignty debate.

AI pilots often succeed. Scaling them is where technology collides with organisational reality.

Everyone is talking about AI, but few are talking about what it actually takes to deploy it safely inside a regulated financial business.

If your exco is still treating routine AI automation with the same friction as a core-platform replacement, former Sasol group CIO Lungile Mginqi outlines how to fix your decision design.

As AI-native firms build around automation from day one, established companies may be forced to revisit the much-criticised idea of business process reengineering.

The way organisations deploy AI can either build durable trust with employees, regulators and customers or not, writes Kershnee Ballack, technology executive: workforce and workplace enablement for Old Mutual. The important question for CIOs is are we creating the conditions in which our people feel genuinely partnered with AI rather than surveilled, diminished or in quiet competition with it?

As digital payments evolve, CIOs are being pushed to modernise infrastructure, strengthen security, and enable faster, more seamless commerce. From stablecoins and agentic commerce to AI-driven fraud defence and biometric authentication, new technologies are reshaping how organisations design and manage payment ecosystems, writes Lineshree Moodley, country head for Visa South Africa.

AI is driving a new wave of hiring urgency, yet restructures are reshaping the same workforce. Is talent truly the limiting factor, or are deeper system limitations shaping outcomes?

Lenders are moving beyond static financial statements to real-time transaction data, enabling faster decisions and more current assessments of SME performance and funding needs, according to David Reynders, CTO at Merchant Capital.

IoD certification equips South African CIOs with governance expertise crucial for board-level influence, but achieving true strategic impact ultimately depends on shifting organisational mindsets that still view ICT as a cost centre rather than a strategic partner, says Wits University CIO Dr Stanley Mpofu.

Your business is constrained by foundational layers built for another era, writes former Sasol group CIO and IT expert Lungile Mginqi.

Central University of Technology (CUT) CIO, Galeboe Mogotsi, writes about his experience transitioning from a CISO role to a CIO role and shares the key lessons he has learnt in the early phase of the transition.

As enterprises across South Africa wrestle with flat or shrinking IT budgets, AI is introducing a fundamentally different cost dynamic that is volatile, non-linear, and difficult to forecast using traditional financial models. MagicOrange’s head of sales for Africa, Middle East and APAC Stephen Coull explores how CIOs can modernise financial governance and link it to business value.

South Africa’s tech leaders must rethink their growing dependence on AI-assisted software development, writes Rennie Naidoo, IS professor and research director at the Wits School of Business Sciences.

Unisa CIO and Vice-Principal of ICT Mathabo Nakene-Mginqi says the university embeds sustainability into IT decision-making from procurement through to responsible end-of-life asset disposal.

In the enterprise, AI only earns the right to scale when it delivers auditable decisions, measurable value and governance-grade trust within a 90-day business cycle, writes former Sasol group CIO and IT expert Lungile Mginqi.

As AI and automation continue to proliferate in workplaces, there is growing tension in boardrooms across South Africa as cyber threats become an increasingly pressing issue for CIOs. IT leaders unpack how they are building cyber resilience while enabling innovation in their organisations.

CIO Awards judge and Jem investor and advisory board member, Zuko Mdwaba writes about the evolving role of CIOs in the age of AI and automation.