When South Africa’s Bytefuse launched Maski in March this year, it set out to solve a deeply local problem: overworked teachers struggling to meet the demands of crowded classrooms and learners often left behind. Yet, just months later, Maski has grown into something more profound, a personal AI tutor for over 100,000 South African learners, accessible entirely via WhatsApp.
Maski’s key innovation isn’t its AI alone but where it lives, on WhatsApp. With no new app to download, no logins to remember, and minimal data costs, Maski has effectively met learners and teachers where they already are. A learner can snap a photo of a tricky maths problem or send a voice note and get instant, curriculum-aligned support.
For rural students without textbooks or consistent teacher access, this is nothing short of transformative. “A learner in a rural village with no textbook and no teacher can open WhatsApp, type a question, receive an explanation, watch a video, and try again,” said Greg Newman, CEO of Bytefuse.
Interview with Greg Newman at Deep Learning Indaba, Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow University
Learning on WhatsApp: A Radical Shift
Maski’s success is part of a broader African story. Across the continent, AI-driven chatbots have found their niches in healthcare like Rwanda’s Babyl, In agriculture Kenya’s DigiFarm assistant, and in education Nigeria’s uLesson and Kenya’s M-Shule. These platforms share a common formula for adoption: low barriers to entry, integration into widely used platforms like WhatsApp or SMS, and hyper-localised content.
In Nigeria, uLesson has helped students access interactive lessons in maths and science, especially in regions where teacher shortages persist. Kenya’s M-Shule pioneered AI-powered SMS tutoring for primary learners as early as 2017. Both examples underscore that in Africa, accessibility often matters more than cutting-edge tech, a principle Maski embodies fully.
The Challenge
The deeper insight here is that Africa’s education crisis is not about content scarcity but delivery gaps, uneven teacher distribution, expensive textbooks, and patchy internet connectivity. Maski’s WhatsApp-first approach cleverly circumvents many of these hurdles.
However, scaling personalisation for millions of learners remains a challenge. The team’s “three-question rule”, getting each learner on the right path within three interactions, hints at how seriously they take this. The next frontier lies in emotional engagement, using gamification and behavioural science to keep learners coming back, much like TikTok entertainment.
Editor's Reflection
Maski’s recent success is a reminder that Africa doesn’t always need to replicate Silicon Valley’s models. Instead, solutions like Maski prove that innovation can mean doing more with what people already have. The chatbot revolution in Africa isn’t just about machines talking; it’s about restoring equity in access to knowledge and opportunity.
As AI tutors like Maski continue to spread, the question for Africa’s educators and policymakers isn’t whether to embrace them, but how to embed these tools sustainably into national education systems, ensuring no learner, whether in Johannesburg or a rural Eastern Cape village, is left behind.
