The OpenText Summit Africa 2025 took place in Sandton on 4 September, bringing together customers, partners and industry thought leaders to explore how cloud, AI and secure information management are reshaping the way organisations work, innovate and create value.
The summit focused on enabling customers to unlock human potential in an era where data and AI converge, with speakers emphasising the role of partnerships, skills development and secure information management in driving business transformation.
Cloud and AI: The road ahead
Opening the event, Tsepa Ramoriting, Vice-President of Sales at OpenText Africa, said the summit was about more than showcasing solutions. It was about connecting OpenText with its customers, connecting customers with partners and enabling organisations to share their journeys.
“The theme for the road ahead is cloud and AI,” Ramoriting told delegates. He stressed the importance of building skills within the broader ecosystem to ensure that technology deployments are successful. “Our partners are giving learners practical, hands-on experience, which has transformed how we approach recruitment. This is how we empower people to make the most of the tools available to them.”
Ramoriting also addressed the growing challenge of securing data – both structured and unstructured. He noted that customers must be able to locate and identify sensitive information in order to apply the right protections. OpenText’s new data initiative, he said, aims to “bring out the best in every organisation by empowering individuals to see information in new ways”.
AI and the future of information management
Harald Adams, OpenText’s Senior Vice-President for International Sales, spoke about the company’s vision of becoming the world’s leading information management business. He reminded delegates that information management is already deeply embedded in everyday life – from shopping and payments to education, healthcare and citizen services.
Adams painted a picture of a future where people can “have conversations with their data”. He described a scenario where AI agents act as co-workers, retrieving information, conducting research, summarising content and surfacing insights when they are needed most. “Imagine taking photos of the equipment in your gym and asking AI to design a workout based on what’s available,” he said. “Or in a business setting, asking AI to conduct targeted research. But without the right controls, you could expose sensitive information to the wrong people. That’s why AI must be deployed in a secure, controlled way.”
He highlighted what he called the AI data wave, describing it as the convergence of computing, the internet, content management, digital business, generative AI and autonomous technologies. “By 2028, 95% of organisations will have integrated generative AI into daily operations – up from just 15% in 2025,” Adams said, citing Gartner research.
The opportunity, he said, lies in creating a limitless digital workforce, but this requires secure and connected information management. “Skills will remain critical, but when used correctly, AI can accelerate and amplify those skills. Businesses must prepare for new paradigms of work – where digital knowledge workers interact with data in new ways and, ultimately, work alongside digital workers.”
Human potential in the age of AI
Karim Rizkallah, Regional VP of Solution Consulting for Emerging Markets at OpenText, spoke about the human condition in the age of AI. He framed talent and data as the two most valuable assets that businesses possess. “AI transforms the value of both,” he said.
According to Rizkallah, the combination of human creativity and AI-powered digital workers will deliver “extreme process automation” at scale, boosting productivity and reimagining the digital knowledge worker. Yet he warned that businesses must also navigate a “perfect storm” of geopolitical uncertainty, economic volatility, demographic shifts and digital risk.
Despite these challenges, Rizkallah was optimistic. He pointed to opportunities for “digital innovation for good”, highlighting AI-driven breakthroughs in healthcare, education, sustainability and customer experience. Examples included dynamic supply chains that adapt to inflation or material shortages, climate modelling to detect deforestation, AI-powered accessibility tools and zero-trust cyber security architectures.
“Cyber security is job number one,” Rizkallah said. “It is not just the C-suite’s responsibility. Every part of the organisation has a role to play in protecting, detecting, recovering and complying. The future is slowed by islands of disconnected data but accelerated by integrated and secure information.”
From vision to value: Powering the AI journey
The summit also explored how OpenText is guiding organisations through their AI adoption journey. Garen Yacoubian, Regional Vice-President for Business Value Consulting at OpenText, and Subin Kesavan, Lead Value Engineer for Business Value Consulting at OpenText, described the evolution from knowledge workers – people who interpret complex information and make decisions based on expertise – to digital workers, who use software-based agents to augment human potential.
Citing a McKinsey study, Yacoubian noted that generative AI could unlock between $60 billion and $103 billion of economic value across Africa. However, fewer than half of organisations are currently engaging in behaviours that deliver high returns from AI.
“The honeymoon phase of generative AI is over,” delegates were told. “It’s time to move beyond experimenting with engines and start solving real business problems.” This means building teams with the right skills, focusing on clean and usable data, and accelerating the journey towards meaningful AI adoption.
Kesavan outlined three broad approaches companies are taking: takers, who adopt off-the-shelf AI solutions for specific problems; shakers, who experiment with integrating generative AI through prompt engineering; and makers, who take a holistic approach by creating AI “factories” that can scale solutions across the business.
The AI factory model was described as a framework that helps organisations build and improve their own AI solutions efficiently, with phases spanning vision, strategy, data, modelling, monitoring and value realisation. Common use cases already emerging include procurement, banking, industrial manufacturing, insurance, utilities, HR, oil and gas and legal services.
Unlocking the future
Throughout the summit, one message stood out: AI represents both an enormous opportunity and a profound responsibility. To unlock its potential, businesses must build the right skills, secure their data and establish strong governance frameworks.
As Adams said in his presentation: “Customers need secure IP, the ability to search and summarise information and clear boundaries between private and public data. All of this is only possible through partnerships and collaborations. This is how we move from vision to value in an AI-first world.”
If you didn’t manage to attend OpenText Summit Africa 2025, or missed some of the sessions, you can find everything here.
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