How AI Operations are Driving Efficiency in East Africa’s Commerce Sector

Human resource practitioners say companies across the region are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI).

At a recent event that brought together business leaders, entrepreneurs, and industry innovators to explore the trends, technologies, and strategies defining the next era of commerce, industry players said AI is now making it easier to handle common tasks.

Industry players at the inaugural Future of Commerce Summit, hosted by Factorial, Europe´s leading AI workforce operations platform, and Glovo Kenya, said that AI is increasingly being used for smart hiring, live coaching, document reading, automatic scheduling, on-demand reports, and co-creation by businesses across the region.

Reinforcing this momentum, Factorial’s leadership highlighted the urgent need for scalable workforce solutions.

“East Africa’s commerce sector is expanding at a pace that demands smarter, faster, and more connected ways of managing people,” said Fredrick Githendu, Partner Manager, Factorial.

A presentation on “The Hidden ROI: How AI in People Operations Fuels Fast-Moving Commerce” showed that businesses that had adopted Factorial One AI platform, the company’s flagship AI platform had seen 15 hours saved weekly on rosters, 75% faster CV screening and 90% less report build time.

The Factorial One AI platform is a unified system that automates payroll, talent management, performance, and workforce analytics, giving commerce-sector businesses the operational intelligence they need to grow with confidence.

On its part Glovo said that its fast expansion over the last few years has seen it see the need to invest in better human management systems.

“Over the last 4 years, the Glovo business has grown 4x, with our staff increasing from 33 to over 100 and increasingly always looking for smarter, faster, and more connected ways of managing people,” said Caroline Mutuku, Country Managing Director, Kenya Glovo.

In Africa, HR technology adoption has been rapidly increasing across East African nations. Enterprises have finally begun recognising the limitations associated with using manual people management tools and that there are some gaps within the current local/global solutions that are yet to be addressed by any player.

As revealed by Deloitte in its ‘2025 Africa Human Capital Trends’ report, more than 60% of medium-sized enterprises based in Africa’s major cities have adopted at least one digital HR tool. Although it’s a positive sign of growing adoption rates, it is just a starting point.

The Africa payroll software market, valued at $487.3 million in 2026, is expected to grow to reach $1.66 billion by 2035, expanding at a 14.60% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). According to the report, increased cloud adoption, compliance burden, and growth in mobile-first enterprise infrastructure are some of the factors driving growth within the region.

Factorial, one of Europe’s highest-valued technology scale-ups with a fast-growing presence in African enterprise markets, recently closed a $150 million Series D funding round, valuing it at $2.5 billion.

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