Google Showcases AI’s Power at Second “AI in Action” Event

The second leg of AI in Action was held in Johannesburg. The event was a showcase of Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools’ impact on both the innovation and business landscapes within South Africa.

It drew a diverse attendance of tech ecosystem stakeholders, business leaders, and media, and served as a strategic platform for Google to reaffirm its unwavering commitment to advancing Africa’s digital transformation journey through the adoption of Artificial Intelligence.

Under the theme “AI is Now,” Google used the opportunity to  demonstrate how businesses, developers, and communities in South Africa can responsibly leverage AI to significantly enhance productivity, drive innovation, and effectively address real-world challenges.

This year’s event aimed at highlighting how the growth of the AI industry is influencing the future of work, education, and commerce across South Africa. Through practical demonstrations, attendees gained insights into adopting AI solutions to unlock new opportunities, significantly improve operational efficiency, and maintain competitiveness within the rapidly evolving global digital economy.

“At Google, we believe in the  immense potential of AI to transform businesses while uplifting the economy, and significantly improve lives across South Africa,” stated Kabelo Makwane, Country Director for Google South Africa.

“We are dedicated to progressing AI responsibly and driving growth through partnerships and collaborations, ensuring that AI – as a transformative technology – is not only accessible, but also truly inclusive and responsible in attempting to address local and global challenges,” he added.

During the same event, IDInsight‘s ‘Ask-A-Question‘, developed in partnership with Reach Digital Health, was unveiled. This solution that benefits from Google.org’s support is a natural language chatbot that dramatically reduces barriers to critical health information for new and expectant mothers.

Leveraging Google Cloud and a fine-tuned Gemma model, “Ask-A-Question” is already making a tangible difference, answering an astonishing 40,000 to 60,000 questions per month  right here in South Africa on the MomConnect platform. This highlights the profound real-world impact of AI in delivering essential support where it’s needed most.

“Google.org’s incredible support was instrumental in bringing our ‘Ask-A-Question’ chatbot to life. This partnership has already allowed us to dramatically reduce barriers to critical health information for new and expectant mothers across South Africa, and we believe this is just the beginning of how we will integrate AI’s vast potential,” said Daniel Futerman, Head of Engineering at Reach Digital Health.

Other announcements at the event:

NotebookLM available in isiZulu & Afrikaans

AI-powered research and summarisation tool, NotebookLM is now available in local South African languages, including isiZulu and Afrikaans. The tool enables students to summarise study materials in their own language or a small business owner to review market insights in Afrikaans, bridging language and understanding – gaps to ensure AI works for South Africa’s diverse linguistic communities. This marks a significant step forward in fostering inclusive local content creation and consumption.

SynthID Detector

Another milestone at the event was the  launch of the SynthID Detector, a public tool that helps users identify content that has been watermarked with SynthID. With over 10 billion pieces of content already watermarked, this tool offers a new layer of transparency and trust, especially for journalists, researchers, and anyone navigating the fast-evolving digital information landscape.