East African chief executives rank artificial intelligence among their leading investment priorities, yet the Ugandan company disclosures reviewed by this website do not link it to revenue or productivity.

KPMG’s 2026 Africa CEO Outlook, released Thursday, found that 74 per cent of East African chief executives identified AI as a top investment priority. But confidence in execution is far lower; only 12 per cent said they were confident that their organisations were keeping pace with, or ahead of, the technology.

The gap is not confined to East Africa. Across Africa, 72 per cent of chief executives called AI a top priority, against 79 per cent globally, but only 14 per cent said they were keeping pace with or ahead of the technology, against 66 per cent globally. Southern African executives — 79 per cent — were the most likely to rank AI a priority and to say (20 per cent) they were on pace.

KPMG did not break down the results for Uganda. And with its East Africa figures drawing on just 50 of the 176 chief executives surveyed, the consultancy says the figures show the way things look like they are going, not how far they’ve gotten there.

Cost and data readiness were each cited by 60 per cent of respondents as among the biggest AI implementation challenges, while 78 per cent expected to spend no more than a fifth of their budgets over the next 12 months.

The most commonly cited benefits, at 64 per cent, were efficiency and productivity, followed by threat detection and security at 56 per cent. KPMG described the perceived benefits as “primarily operational rather than revenue-led.”

African executives also expect to wait longer for returns. Forty-two per cent expect them beyond three years, against 12 per cent globally, while 48 per cent expect returns within one to three years, compared to 71 per cent globally.

Ugandan disclosures offer a narrower view of what companies are doing. The documents reviewed were Airtel Uganda’s half-year 2025 results release, describing a customer-protection service; Centenary Group’s May announcement of an agreement with Huawei; and a Pearl Bank job advertisement for a data scientist from June.

Airtel’s is the clearest use case. In its half-year 2025 results, the telecom said it had launched an AI-based spam-alert service in April that year to protect customers from fraudulent and unwanted messages. It did not disclose how many customers used the service or whether it cut costs or improved earnings, however.

Centenary Group said in May that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei Technologies (Uganda) covering AI-driven banking, stronger cybersecurity and a modernised data infrastructure, which the bank described as a strategic partnership. The announcement did not show, however, a product in use, give date for a new one, or disclose an investment.

Pearl Bank’s June advertisement for a senior data scientist mentioned predictive models, production-grade applications, and operational efficiency.