If time is money, then African marketers are minting hours with machines, and losing just as much to ignorance.
A new report by Column and Smarketers Hub reveals that while 71% of marketing teams across Africa already use AI tools regularly, only 26% have received formal training.
Hence, Marketers are saving up to 10 hours a week with tools like ChatGPT, yet stumbling when it comes to strategy, automation, and data analysis.
The survey of 100 marketers, 90 based in Nigeria and others from Ghana, Zambia, and beyond, reveals that AI has become a fixture in everyday marketing. 95% of respondents use ChatGPT, 55% rely on Gemini, and 42% on Claude. Smaller groups use tools like Copy.ai (23%), Jasper (9%), DALL·E (11%), and Midjourney (4%).
For 82% of marketers, content creation is the top use case, followed by ad copy (25%), audience research (22%), SEO (18%), and reporting (14%).
And the benefits are undeniable. 41% of respondents reported saving 4 to 6 hours per week, while 18% said AI gives them back more than 10 hours. Freelancers, who made up 15% of respondents, described AI as a lifeline, filling the gaps in teams too small to meet deadlines alone.
One respondent sai: “AI gives me a good structure. I then put my voice in the work before sending it out.”
But then, 57% described AI’s impact as very positive, 30% as somewhat positive, while only 8% held a neutral or negative view. When asked what still gets done manually, the answers were: “Everything.” and “99% of my work is content writing. So nothing I do is completely automated. AI-assisted? Yes. But it’s all manual.”
The problem isn’t desire but direction. 46% of marketers feel least confident in technical SEO, 40% in workflow integration, 39% in data analysis, and 38% in automation.
Limitations are familiar, as 31% don’t know where to start, 26% lack time, 19% cite poor training resources, and 18% blame tight budgets. Despite these challenges, companies are offering little help, most respondents said they had received no AI-related training in the past year.
Aisha Owolabi, founder of Smarketers Hub, said “This report is a wake-up call for marketing leaders in Africa: AI isn’t just a future trend, it’s already reshaping how teams work. The data makes it clear — marketers are eager and experimenting, but without structured support they’ll remain stuck at the basics.”
Mo Shehu, CEO of Column, reiterated the urgency: “AI is reshaping how African marketers work. Teams are experimenting even without much formal training and already saving hours each week. The challenge for CMOs is turning those small wins into a structured, team-wide advantage.”
The report classifies teams into three categories. Beginners tinker without guidance, producing scattered results. Intermediates experiment more actively, especially in content and SEO, but lack standards and consistency.
Only a handful of advanced teams embed AI fully into workflows, supported by playbooks, ongoing training, and ROI tracking; most African marketers today sit at the beginner or early-intermediate stage.
Looking deeper into the demographics, we see 88% of respondents were junior or mid-level marketers, meaning the future of AI in African marketing rests on early-career professionals with limited resources. For them, structured mentorship, localised training, and practical playbooks are highly important.
The report further forecasts three changes in the next 12 months:
- Tool diversification: As Marketers get more confidence, they will start moving beyond ChatGPT into tools like Gemini, Claude, Canva AI, and Perplexity.
- Formal training: companies embedding AI modules into onboarding, workshops, and performance reviews.
- Team-level alignment: AI shifting from individual experimentation to coordinated campaign planning, reporting, and strategy.
But risks are increasing too. Regulation of AI use, particularly around data, content transparency, and ethics, is expected to tighten, both from governments and companies. The report warns CMOs to establish internal codes of conduct now, before misuse catches up with them.
“African CMOs have a chance to lead, not follow,” Owolabi said. For now, the continent’s marketers are eager but underprepared, productive but undertrained, saving hours every week but losing years of competitive advantage without the structure to take AI beyond the basics.
