“In 2026, AI will make organisational failure arrive faster.” – Adia Sowho

Prediction

AI will make organisational failure arrive faster. By lowering the cost of learning and execution, AI removes the buffers that once let misaligned companies survive on momentum. In African tech specifically, we’ll see sharper divergence between companies that build for real user behaviour and those that mistake activity for progress—the latter will hit walls sooner because tighter margins and weaker institutional cushions mean consequences arrive quickly.

Supporting Evidence

Teams using identical AI tools already show sharply divergent outcomes. The difference tracks to incentive design, not capability access. Companies anchored to outcome-based metrics see compounding gains; those rewarding output generate more activity without impact. This pattern is visible now—2026 just accelerates it.

Risk Factor

Continued access to cheap capital that lets companies postpone reckoning with weak fundamentals. You could say this is an unexpected upside of the current funding winter. If funding remains available without outcome discipline, misalignment stays hidden longer. But in markets where that cushion doesn’t exist, where you can’t subsidise your way past poor product-market fit, the divergence will be unmistakable.

Who is Adia Sowho?

Adia Sowho is an operator and systems thinker focused on building durable businesses in emerging markets. Over the past two decades, she has built and operated technology businesses across telecoms, fintech, and platform-driven marketplaces—often in environments where infrastructure, trust, and formality don’t behave as inherited business models assume. Earlier in her career, she worked at Deloitte, advising Fortune 500 companies and senior executives in developed markets, shaping the comparative lens that informs her work today.

As Chief Marketing Officer at MTN Nigeria, Sowho led the consumer business serving more than 80 million customers and over $4 billion in annual revenue. Her track record also includes scaling companies from zero to nine figures across fintech (Migo), agriculture (Thrive Agric), and telecommunications (9mobile).