M-PESA, Kenya’s mobile money service run by Safaricom, already touches the daily lives of millions across East Africa. But the next frontier for M-PESA couldn’t just be payments but AI-powered conversational commerce. By combining AI messaging or conversational AI with integrated services, M-PESA could evolve into Africa’s first true super-app: a 24/7 conversational commerce ecosystem where users can chat, pay, book, and play, all without leaving the interface.
For nearly two decades, M-PESA has quietly reshaped life in Kenya. From paying school fees and utility bills to supporting small businesses, remitting money to relatives, and facilitating freelance work, the app has become essential infrastructure. Its ubiquity and trust are why British firm Vodacom recently increased its stake in Safaricom, signaling confidence in M-PESA’s enduring dominance.
Yet the app’s full potential remains untapped especially in these age of AI. Today, users navigate a fragmented landscape of mini-apps for airline bookings, retail gift cards, ride-hailing, and more. While functional, this “super-mall” approach is clunky and disconnected. Embedding AI-driven messaging could collapse friction, letting users request a ride, order groceries, or book tickets conversationally, while the app handles the logistics behind the scenes.
Globally, super-apps combine communication, payments, and services into a seamless ecosystem. WeChat blends messaging, payments, e-commerce, ride-hailing, food delivery, games, and utility payments. Alipay extends to banking, insurance, travel, and mini-programs. Southeast Asia’s Grab and Gojek evolved from ride-hailing into platforms for logistics, food delivery, finance, and entertainment. Other examples include India’s Paytm, Latin America’s Rappi, Vietnam’s Zalo, and Africa’s OPay and Gozem.
M-PESA, by contrast, acts more like a “super-mall” of vendor mini-apps than a fully integrated platform. A true African super-app would let users hail rides, order food, book tickets, complete gigs, and invest in one interface. No hopping between mini-apps, no unnecessary friction but just one seamless AI-powered service.
Like in India and Brazil, daily life in Africa is transactional and conversational. Buyers want trust, sellers negotiate, and dialogue is essential. In Kenya, WhatsApp handles messaging while M-PESA handles payments but switching apps creates friction. Embedded AI messaging could turn conversations into transactions, making money movement as effortless as texting a friend.
Under Vodafone’s control, Safaricom needs to envision a single interface where users pay bills, buy groceries, book rides, play games, complete micro-tasks, and invest without ever leaving the app. Just as users deposit or withdraw money without knowing which bank handles it, AI-powered M-PESA could orchestrate services behind the scenes, providing a seamless user experience.
By 2026, the M-PESA super-app could manage nearly every daily need in one place. Vendor-agnostic integration means users request services conversationally while AI selects the best provider. Safaricom’s Daraja API already supports merchants, enabling M-PESA to function both as a super-app and as trusted financial infrastructure.
Messaging and AI would transform M-PESA into the hub of conversational commerce. Combined with embedded services, games, gigs, tasks, transport, and event bookings, the app could become the digital space where millions live, work, play, and secure their financial future.
Safaricom’s tech co roadmap supports this vision. Plans include micro-insurance, expanding Masoko, M-Shwari, Fuliza, M-PESA Global, RATIBA, and partnerships for services like Faraja (Buy-Now-Pay-Later). Even Songa, Safaricom’s Spotify-like service, could be integrated as a feature rather than a separate app.
M-PESA already dominates payments across Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, and Uganda, serving tens of millions of users and hundreds of thousands of businesses. Its regulatory trust and deep market penetration give it a unique advantage. Launching a fully integrated super-app in these markets would face minimal adoption barriers. Vodacom’s partnership with Alipay also opens doors for cross-border payments and global commerce.
Upcoming updates, like bill-splitting and premium caller ID features, show the company’s focus on engagement. But the true leap comes with AI and messaging, the interface that connects financial services, embedded services, games, gigs, tasks, transport, event bookings, and investments seamlessly and intelligently.
With this approach, M-PESA could become Africa’s WeChat: a single app where users live, work, transact, and play to power the continent’s next digital economy.