The new apprenticeship: AI tools and Africa's informal sector

Most work in Africa happens outside formal employment. In Kenya, the informal sector, often called jua kali, includes mechanics, welders, tailors, carpenters, hairdressers, food vendors, boda riders, traders and countless others. Most of them learned their trade the same way: by watching, helping and gradually taking over from someone more experienced. Apprenticeship is the informal sector's university.

AI tools are arriving in this world. The question is whether they will be designed for it.

What apprenticeship teaches

An apprentice learns more than a technique. They learn:

• Judgement: when a weld is good enough, when a fabric will not hold
• Customers: how to price, negotiate and keep people coming back
• Business: how to buy materials, manage money and survive slow months
• Reputation: that the quality of your work is your advertising

Where AI could act like a master

Imagine AI tools that support those same lessons:

• Explaining a technique: a short video showing how to do a repair, in Kiswahili, on demand
• Pricing help: estimating costs and a fair price for a job
• Marketing: making a short video of finished work to share with customers. The duka goes digital
• Records: keeping track of sales and expenses through a voice note
• Customer service: answering common questions on WhatsApp while hands are busy

Some of these tools exist today. Tari Studio, for example, lets a business describe an ad in plain words and get a short video in Kiswahili, English as Kenyans speak it or the mix, with the credit cost shown before anything is made.

What designers must get right

Tools built for offices often fail in workshops. Designing for the informal sector means:

• Voice and pictures before text: many workers prefer to speak rather than type
• Local languages: Kiswahili and the mix at minimum, more over time
• Low data: tools that work on modest phones and small bundles
• Small payments: pay as you go by M-Pesa, not monthly cards in dollars
• Trust: clear costs, no surprises, and data that stays the worker's

What AI cannot replace

A master craftsperson's judgement, built over years, is not something an app supplies. Neither is the network of relationships that keeps an informal business alive. AI can add tools to the workshop. It cannot replace the person at the bench.

There are risks too: tools that collect data without consent, that lock workers into platforms, or that undercut skilled trades with low-quality automation. The informal sector has seen many "solutions" designed far away. Why AI could make advertising more African.

A view

We think the most valuable AI tools for Africa's informal sector will be the ones that make skilled people more visible and more productive, rather than the ones that try to replace them. The apprenticeship model has served the continent for centuries. AI should join it as a helper, not a replacement.

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