Kenya came 22nd out of 56 Commonwealth countries in a study of how well young people are placed to benefit from artificial intelligence. The Ayre Think Tank, a research organisation founded by Calvin Ayre, released the figures on 5th November 2026. Kenya scored 48.7 out of 100, leaving it 4.3 points short of the study’s 53-point benchmark. Fifteen countries met the benchmark, including Nigeria and South Africa.
The study covers four members of the eight-country East African Community. Uganda came just behind Kenya at 23rd with 47.0 points. Tanzania was 25th with 45.5 points and Rwanda was 47th with 38.1.
What Kenya’s score measures
The Ayre Index compares the conditions people aged 15 to 29 face when they try to use AI. Getting online and learning digital skills are part of the score. So are opportunities to use those skills at work or in business, and the protections people have when an automated system makes a decision about them. The Communications Authority of Kenya put 4G population coverage at 97.3% by June 2025. The World Bank put access to electricity at 77% in 2024.
The researchers could use figures for Kenya on 66 of the 102 indicators in the rankings. That count includes estimates where the scoring rules allowed them. The researchers had too little comparable data to score a separate category on whether young people can question AI and decide for themselves how to use it. In PISA 2025, the OECD’s international assessment of 15-year-old students, 55.5% of the students represented by Kenya’s survey said they were learning to assess AI-generated information in class.
Where the GDP figure comes from
To estimate how much AI could add to Kenya’s economy, the think tank used two scenarios from an International Monetary Fund working paper that models how AI could make economies more productive. It applied the paper’s 0.7% and 2.2% estimates for a broad group of economies to Kenya’s 2025 GDP and averaged the two rates for its middle case.
In that middle case, Kenya’s economy could be USD 1.971 billion larger after ten years, or about KES 256.1 billion. The lower estimate is USD 952 million (about KES 123.7 billion) and the upper one is USD 2.991 billion (about KES 388.7 billion). The conversions use the Central Bank of Kenya rate of KES 129.95 per US dollar on 4th November 2026. Kenya’s readiness score plays no part in that calculation. The estimate covers the whole economy and leaves open who would benefit and how many jobs young Kenyans might get.
MESH, a professional network for people in the informal economy, says more than 55,000 young entrepreneurs completed AI learning content in its 2025 campaign with Microsoft. UNESCO says its programme reached more than 5,300 people in Kenya by the end of May 2026, most of them students. It planned to support 23 technical and vocational institutions that year.
When we covered a Nairobi AI forum in May, speakers made the case for using local data to solve problems Kenyan businesses already face. We’d learn more about that by asking people who took the training which tools they still use at work and whether those tools have helped their businesses or changed what they earn.
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