Future of Commerce Summit highlights AI’s growing role in East Africa’s HR landscape

The Future of Commerce Summit showcased the growing role of artificial intelligence in managing human capital in East Africa, according to industry experts. At the inaugural event organized by Factorial and Glovo Kenya, participants highlighted the increasing adoption of AI for smart hiring, live coaching, document reading, automatic scheduling, on-demand reports, and co-creation.

Fredrick Githendu, Partner Manager at Factorial, emphasized that East Africa’s commerce sector is rapidly expanding, necessitating smarter, faster, and more connected ways of managing people. The summit featured a presentation titled "The Hidden ROI: How AI in People Operations Fuels Fast-Moving Commerce," which revealed that businesses utilizing the Factorial One AI platform achieved notable efficiency gains.

These included saving 15 hours weekly on roster creation, screening 75% more resumes in 1/3rd the time, and reducing report building time by 90%. Factorial One AI is a comprehensive system that automates payroll, talent management, performance tracking, and workforce analytics, providing commerce sector businesses with the operational intelligence needed for growth.

Glovo, a fast-growing Kenyan company, attributed its rapid expansion to the need for advanced human management systems. Over four years, Glovo's staff grew from 33 to over 100, prompting the company to invest in smarter, faster, and more connected people management methods. In Africa, the adoption of HR technology is rapidly increasing in East African nations.

Enterprises are recognizing the limitations of manual people management tools and the gaps in existing local and global solutions. Deloitte's '2025 Africa Human Capital Trends' report indicated that over 60% of medium-sized enterprises in major African cities have adopted at least one digital HR tool. While this represents a positive trend, it is only the beginning.

The Africa payroll software market, valued at $487.3 million in 2026, is projected to reach $1.66 billion by 2035, growing at a 14.60% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Factors driving this growth include increased cloud adoption, the need to meet compliance requirements, and the growth of mobile-first enterprise infrastructure.

Factorial, one of Europe's most valuable technology startups with a growing presence in African enterprise markets, recently closed a $150 million Series D funding round, bringing its valuation to $2.5 billion.