Telecommunications Company, Africell, has entered into a research partnership with University of Oxford to examine the economic and social impact of artificial intelligence tools in West Africa, with a particular focus on Sierra Leone and The Gambia.
The collaboration will see researchers from Oxford University’s Internet Institute and Department of Economics study AfriGPT, Africell’s innovative SMS-based artificial intelligence service that allows users to interact with ChatGPT using basic mobile phones.
The research project is partly funded through Schmidt Sciences’s $3 million “AI at Work Program”, which supports global studies exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping work, productivity and social outcomes.
AfriGPT is designed as a low-cost, flexible subscription service that operates entirely via SMS and requires only 2G mobile connectivity. Unlike most AI chatbot platforms that depend on smartphones and internet access, AfriGPT allows users with feature phones to send questions by text message and receive AI-generated responses, removing one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption in low-income and frontier markets.
According to the researchers, the service provides a rare opportunity to study how generative AI tools can be adopted by users who are typically excluded from digital innovation due to limited internet access. Potential applications of AfriGPT include job searching, small-scale entrepreneurship, education support and general information access.
Sam Williams, Africell’s Group Communications Director, said AI tools such as ChatGPT have become commonplace in Europe and North America but remain far less accessible across much of Africa for economic and technological reasons.
“AfriGPT is promising because it enables mobile users in countries such as Sierra Leone, where internet penetration remains relatively low, to use AI chatbots without the need for internet access,” Sam Williams said. “Africell is pleased to support rigorous research by world-class scholars to determine whether AfriGPT’s value and utility are supported by empirical data.”
Subscribers to AfriGPT pay a small fee to receive AI-generated responses to questions sent via SMS. Because the system is linked to ChatGPT, it delivers many of the same benefits enjoyed by global users, but without requiring smartphones, mobile data or broadband connectivity. This model extends access to AI tools to poorer, younger and more rural populations than would otherwise be possible.
A preliminary survey conducted by Oxford researchers in April 2025 already revealed notable differences in how AfriGPT is used in Sierra Leone compared to global ChatGPT usage patterns. The expanded research programme enabled by Schmidt Sciences funding is expected to provide deeper insights into regional usage trends, device types, seasonal patterns and the broader social and economic implications of AI adoption.
Johanna Barop, a DPhil researcher at Oxford’s Internet Institute, and Joseph Levine, a DPhil researcher in Oxford’s Department of Economics, said the study aims to understand the conditions that shape AI use in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“We want to understand how AI chatbots are used in Sub-Saharan Africa, how this differs from global usage and what the benefits and risks of AI are in this context,” they said. “There is very little research on AI use in low-income and rural African communities, and stronger evidence is needed to ensure that AI tools are developed and distributed with these users in mind.”
The partnership between Africell and Oxford University is expected to contribute important data to global discussions on inclusive AI development, digital access and the role of technology in supporting economic and social progress in Africa.
