AI in classrooms, boardrooms, and the wild

Writing in Business Day, commentator Heath Muchena argues that AI's enormous demand for energy and computing infrastructure is reshaping global investment, making physical infrastructure – power plants, data centres, and the financing behind them – among the most sought-after asset classes. The piece contends that competition between countries and companies is increasingly focused on securing energy supply, technology, and capital for large-scale projects. For South Africa, where electricity supply and infrastructure investment are already pressing concerns, the argument raises questions about how the country positions itself as this global reallocation of capital accelerates.

Writing in Business Day, Morgan Goddard argues that corporate boardrooms are using inflated language around AI investment while the technology has yet to produce measurable gains in economic output. The piece draws on the gap between what companies say they are spending on AI and what that spending is actually delivering, a concern relevant to South African executives and boards weighing similar commitments. It is a caution against treating AI adoption as a signal of progress before the results are in.

South African biodiversity researchers, including scientists at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, have identified AI as both an opportunity and a risk in nature conservation, according to a horizon scan published by The Conversation Africa. The scan found that AI tools, such as image recognition systems for tracking wildlife and text-processing chatbots (software that reads and summarises large volumes of written material), could help conservationists handle data at a scale previously impossible, but that the same tools can generate false information, embed biases from their training data, and marginalise indigenous and local knowledge. The researchers call for regulation, validation standards, and mandatory disclosure of how AI systems are built and used, warning that unchecked automation in conservation decisions could cause real harm in biodiversity-rich, lower-income countries like those across Africa.

Sygnia chief executive Magda Wierzycka has said she wishes she could delete AI, telling Moneyweb's RSG Geldsake that while the technology may bring health and scientific advances and productivity gains, she sees it also concentrating wealth and power, displacing jobs, and producing children who are, in her words, 'blunt, uneducated, and stupid'. The comments put a prominent South African business voice to a debate that is live across the country's labour market, education system, and economy.

Writing in Business Day, Roney Lima do Nascimento argues that South African schools have yet to ask the right questions about how artificial intelligence should be integrated into education. The piece draws on Section 29 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to education, to make the case for a forward-looking approach to AI governance in schools. For South Africa, where educational inequality is already sharp, the argument is that getting this framing right early matters for whether AI widens or narrows that gap.

Writing in Business Day, HB Klopper argues that Capitec's investment in AI-related skills signals a broader shift in what South African employers expect from graduates, and that private higher education institutions are better placed than the public system to respond quickly. The piece contends that the window for universities to close this skills gap is narrow, and that institutions which move slowly risk producing graduates whose qualifications no longer match the labour market.

IT News Africa argues that South African young people are gradually ceding critical thinking to AI tools, drawing a contrast with the generation that marched in 1976 to claim educational self-determination. The piece raises concern that the same digital fluency that gives today's youth an advantage may, if left unexamined, erode the independent reasoning that schooling is meant to build. For South Africa, where educational equity and the quality of learning remain live debates, the question of how AI shapes cognitive habits in the classroom carries real weight.