After being harassed by a customer last month, Alpine turned to AI to figure out the best way to handle the situation.
The answer? Escalate it to your manager.
Alpine laughed when she told us. Of course she doesn’t have a manager; she sells second hand clothing at Toi Market.
Dennis, meanwhile, was looking for ways to make his money stretch further. AI recommended the 50-30-20 rule: spend 50% of your income on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings and debt repayment.
But does that really work when you’re earning 1000Ksh (+- $7,70) one week, and 4500Ksh ($38) the next? To Dennis, it simply didn’t add up.
These are just two examples that show that AI is designed for the formal economy.
AI is designed for the formal economy
Everyone is talking about AI and the future of work, but most of those conversations focus on the impact of AI on the 15% of the workforce — the part that has payslips and HR departments.
What about the rest?
The millions of young people running small businesses, freelancing, hustling between gigs, building livelihoods in the informal economy that powers most of the continent?
At MESH, we’ve always believed that if you want to understand the future of work, you need to start where most of the work is actually happening — the 85% of the workforce working in the informal economy.
This year, together with Microsoft we set out to explore how AI is already reshaping the informal economy, and what needs to happen for it to truly unlock opportunity.
Over three months, the MESH x Microsoft AI Skills campaign reached 2.9 million learners across Kenya, with over 55,000 young entrepreneurs completing AI-skill building content.
What we discovered was both surprising and affirming.
Young informal entrepreneurs are adopting AI rapidly
Over 75% of polled MESHERS are already using AI for their work. They’re curious, optimistic, and eager to use it — mostly to market their businesses, coach themselves through challenges, and think through tough financial decisions.
For them, AI isn’t a threat; it’s a co-pilot.
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Check out our AI Insight report to hear from MESHERS how they are using AI
But, the promise of AI is uneven
Through our work and research, we found that the main barrier to making AI a real livelihood tool is not tech literacy.
It’s that AI systems are built with a giant blind spot for what matters to people in the informal economy — who account for 60% of the world’s workforce and 80% of Africa’s workforce.
Local language gaps, recurring subscription costs, lack of credit cards, and patchy data access all stand in the way.
The tools available today are built for people in formal office jobs — not for a hairdresser in Kisumu creating marketing materials, or a motorbike parts seller in Nairobi trying to grow on a small budget
As one MESHER observed, it revealed something deeper: most AI tools still assume a world that looks nothing like theirs.
Here lies the opportunity.
Africa’s informal economy — 85% of its workforce — is not a marginal segment. It is the largest testbed in the world for how AI can drive inclusion, adaptability, and growth.
What MESH is doing with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
We’re not waiting for Big Tech to figure out the informal economy. We’re building with it, for it, and from within it.
Over the past year, MESH has been running live experiments with AI in real informal business settings — not labs or boardrooms.
Our focus has been simple: How might AI put more money in the pockets of MESHERS?
Here is what we're working on:
1. Real-world use cases that matter
Not abstract “AI for productivity,” but AI for everyday survival and growth:
- Promotion and customer acquisition
- Sales scripts and pricing decisions
- Financial planning on irregular income
- Emotional support and problem-solving under pressure
These insights now shape our product roadmap and learning content inside MESH.
2. Closing the data gap
AI today is trained on formal-world assumptions — salaried jobs, predictable income, corporate hierarchies.
MESH is building a new data layer based on the informal economy, including:
- Daily income swings
- Mobile-first communication
- Hustler economics
- Community trust and relationship-based commerce
This is the data the world is missing — and the data AI needs if it’s going to work for 80% of Africa’s workforce.
3. Teaching AI literacy, not just AI usage
The most important skill we’ve identified is not “how to use AI” but:
- How to ask better questions
- How to spot bad or harmful advice
- How to adapt AI outputs to local reality
We are turning MESHERS into critical AI thinkers, not passive tool users.
4. Building AI into the MESH platform
Not as a shiny add-on, but as a true co-pilot for entrepreneurs:
- Helping them create business assets
- Practice tough conversations
- Understand finances
- Build confidence to step into bigger opportunities
We're ramping up our AI experimentation for 2026. Specifically with MESHERS like Alpine and Dennis in mind.
When AI is designed for irregular income, limited data, local language, voice notes, and real hustle dynamics, it stops being a buzzword. It becomes a livelihood tool.
As always, we'll share what we learn on our journey. Subscribe to this newsletter – the Hustle – and follow MESH on Linkedin.
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