Colin Thornton, Director, Argantic

After a tentative start in leveraging GenAI technology and mainly dabbling with basic functionality like email creation and repetitive tasks, South African mid-market businesses are applying the technology to in-depth business processes and workflows.

Colin Thornton, Director of Argantic, a leading Microsoft solutions provider with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, offers his opinion on the impact that GenAI has had on South African markets.

“I got very excited initially when ChatGPT started hitting those massive user numbers. I thought that it was going to immediately transform the business landscape, but that didn’t turn out to be true,” says Thornton.

But things have changed.

“Today, ChatGPT is still used to draft emails or proposals, and in a very short space of time, it has become almost ubiquitous,” he says. “However, we are seeing more complex use cases now too; for instance, IT managers with no coding experience are creating virtual agents or chatbots with Copilot Studio.”

Amid the excitement and growing interest in GenAI in the workplace, Thornton says it’s crucial for business owners to position compliance at the forefront of GenAI strategies.

He emphasises this point, adding that South Africa is still in the formative stage of AI policy development.

“AI in a typical IT environment can turn the average person – with or without technical skills – into a fully-fledged hacker. With the right permissions, someone with few IT skills can suddenly figure out where the invoices are and how to intercept communication or commit fraud.”

While Thornton acknowledges concern about businesses using GenAI without a secure policy framework in place, he says this is fairly typical in the digital space. “This is quite normal with new technologies. People see it, they like it, and they implement it – assuming it is within budget – and policies catch up later.” But the Argantic executive is quick to add that while the situation is to be expected, it is high time for businesses to “get their houses in order” in terms of policies and user education. This is not highly technical; it’s a straightforward business imperative, Thornton continues.

“We see tons of people utilising GenAI on a daily basis and they don’t know that what they are doing is a breach of PoPIA, or that it puts their business contracts with suppliers or customers at risk, or that there’s a potential leak of IP. So the policies are not where they should be, user education is not where it should be, and there’s a lot of work to do. No one I’ve met enjoys compliance, but GenAI should be pushing it higher up the priority list.

“The reality of the market today is that employees across many industries are using whatever GenAI tools they like and it’s become a new sort of Shadow IT. Even with the correct policies in place, IT managers and CIOs are racing to exert control using tools like web filtering or access management services.

“Where it gets especially tricky for certain industries is when users apply private IP into a public GenAI tool and ask for it to be recreated or edited. The confidential data can be stored and used for training, and that’s one of the most common examples of IP leakage,” says Thornton.

Argantic advises that businesses adhere to the principles of good governance and take cognisance of the change GenAI is already having.

Thornton adds that while South Africa is generally behind international counterparts when it comes to application of GenAI, Argantic is seeing a big upsurge in interest since the beginning of this year.

“We’re telling customers that this is a journey and that the right way to start is with a solid compliance plan. It doesn’t have to get in the way of all the exciting benefits, but it must be a part of the journey” he says.

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