EXPLORING THE ADOPTION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE ZIMBABWE BANKING SECTOR

This study examines how far the Zimbabwe banking sector has progressed in adopting AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology in their banking processes. According to PwC’s AI impact index which looks at 300 AI use cases around the globe the technology will contribute US$15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030 boosting the GDP of individual countries by up to 26%. AI technology enables computers to mimic human intelligence so that they can learn, sense, think and act in order to achieve automation and gain analytic insights. The study revealed that the drivers for adopting AI in the banking sector are customer satisfaction, cost reduction and the need to better manage risk and the barriers to adoption of AI are lack of AI knowledge, lack of resources including AI talent and establishing governance for ethical AI, data privacy and other security issues. The primary data was collected using survey as a research strategy, the data was collected from 120 bank employees across ten banks. The study also revealed that the banking sector in Zimbabwe has adopted AI embedded in their banking software to enhance bank processes and also to enhance security and risk control and only 16% of the surveyed banks had adopted some form of AI to enhance customer interaction and experience in the form of chatbots.

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