For many small businesses in Nigeria, the path from discovering a product to making a purchase does not necessarily begin on an e-commerce website.
It often begins with a WhatsApp message.
A customer may see a product on Instagram, message the seller directly, ask for the price, negotiate, confirm availability, make a payment, and arrange delivery—all within a conversation.
That model has created an enormous opportunity for businesses operating through social media. Still, it has also created a significant operational problem: how can small businesses respond quickly and consistently when every customer conversation requires manual attention?
Nigerian startup Kasi AI is building its technology around that problem.
Founded by Temidayo Aderibigbe, Kasi AI describes itself as an AI-powered sales and customer-service agent designed for online vendors. The startup’s technology is intended to manage customer interactions from the initial enquiry through product selection, payment, order tracking, logistics and post-purchase follow-up.
TechPolyp spoke with Temidayo Aderibigbe, CEO and Co-founder of Kasi AI, about the problem that inspired the company, how its AI sales agent works, the challenges of building technology for African businesses, and the startup’s ambitions for the future.
Why Social Commerce Matters to Nigerian Businesses
The growth of social commerce is changing how businesses interact with customers.
According to PwC’s 2024 MSME Survey, WhatsApp Business was the most-used technology among the surveyed Nigerian MSMEs at 23%, followed by Facebook at 19% and Instagram at 15%. The survey covered 557 MSME operators across 13 sectors and 29 states.
The numbers highlight how important messaging and social platforms have become for Nigerian businesses.
The opportunity extends beyond individual platforms. A 2026 report on Nigeria’s digital economy by independent research firm Public First, commissioned by Meta, said approximately 14 million Nigerian SMEs used Meta’s applications in 2025 to start, run and grow their businesses. The study estimated that Meta’s platforms contributed about $2 billion to Nigeria’s GDP and generated approximately $640 million in productivity gains through instant messaging.
At the broader African level, the social-commerce market is also expanding. According to PayNXT360’s Africa Social Commerce Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics Databook, the market is expected to reach approximately US$4.46 billion in 2026, following annual growth of 26.7%, with the market forecast to grow at a 16.2% CAGR between 2026 and 2031.
For businesses selling through conversations, however, growth brings a problem.
The more customers a merchant attracts, the more messages have to be answered.
A prospective buyer might ask for a price and wait hours for a response. By the time the merchant replies, the customer may have already purchased from a competitor.
It was such personal experience in commerce that inspired Kasi AI
Asked what first convinced him that African SMEs needed an AI-powered solution, Temidayo points to his own experience as a consumer.
“I experienced this frustration firsthand as a consumer trying to purchase items from local vendors online.”
He encountered situations where slow responses created lost opportunities for both buyers and sellers. When a business operates primarily through direct messages, virtually every part of the sales process can require manual intervention.
Customer enquiries, product questions, order confirmations, payment confirmations, and delivery updates can all become individual tasks for the business owner or their customer-service team. For small businesses with limited staff, this can create a significant operational burden. Temidayo says this frustration eventually became the foundation for Kasi AI.
What Exactly Does Kasi AI Do?
At its simplest, Temidayo describes Kasi AI as an AI-powered sales and customer-service agent built for online vendors.
A business can upload its product catalogue, connect its payment systems and define its logistics rules.
Kasi AI can then manage customer interactions across the sales process. When a customer asks about a product, the AI responds.
If the customer decides to purchase, the system can process payment through integrations such as Paystack. It can then help manage order tracking and logistics coordination and follow up with the customer after the purchase.
The company’s objective is to allow merchants to spend less time managing repetitive conversations and more time focusing on their products, fulfilment and business growth.
For a small business owner who may simultaneously be the accountant, marketer, salesperson and delivery coordinator, that type of automation could significantly change how the business operates.
Kasi has also evolved beyond a standard sales agent. It is an approved Meta Tech Provider, integrated directly into Meta’s ecosystem—a rare and verifiable status that most tools in its space do not have. Its Instagram handle is now fully live, and Kasi handles Instagram DMs alongside WhatsApp, so a vendor can sell across both channels from a single place rather than only on WhatsApp.
In addition, Kasi now functions as a negotiation engine that bargains within the vendor’s own price limits. It also includes a system that separates real buying intent from noise.
Automated delivery pricing is built in. When a customer shares their location, Kasi calculates a fair delivery fee automatically based on the distance from the vendor, so the vendor gets an instant, accurate quote without any guesswork.
Kasi AI Says it is More Than a Chatbot
Temidayo is particularly keen to distinguish Kasi AI from conventional chatbots.
Traditional chatbots can answer questions, but according to Temidayo, many stop there. However, Kasi AI is designed to perform business actions as part of the conversation.
A customer can ask about a product, select an item, make a payment, provide delivery information and receive updates without the merchant having to manually manage every stage. The company’s vision is therefore to turn social-media messaging interfaces into automated storefronts.
“This is a complete interaction system, not just a conversation.”
The distinction is important.
Rather than positioning AI simply as a tool for answering frequently asked questions, Kasi AI is attempting to use AI as an operational layer connecting customer communication with sales, payments, orders and logistics.
Building AI for the Way Africans Interact
Another important element of Kasi AI’s approach is localisation.
African markets are linguistically diverse, and customer communication does not always happen through formal written English.
Customers may send voice notes, images and videos. They may use informal language or combine English with indigenous languages.
Temidayo says Kasi AI has been designed to support Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, as well as Nigerian Pidgin, while also incorporating voice-to-text processing for incoming voice messages.
That means a customer who prefers to communicate through a voice note does not necessarily have to switch to formal written English to interact with an automated system.
For Temidayo, this is an important part of building technology for African markets.
A business owner in Kano communicating with customers in Hausa should not have to change the way they communicate simply to accommodate an automation platform. Similarly, a customer who prefers Nigerian Pidgin should be able to communicate naturally.
The principle is simple: technology should adapt to the customer rather than forcing the customer to adapt to the technology.
AI and Human Workers Working Together
The rise of artificial intelligence has also created concerns about whether automation will eventually replace customer-service workers.
Temidayo says that is not Kasi AI’s objective. The company’s approach is to use AI to handle high-volume, repetitive interactions while allowing human employees to focus on more complex and valuable work.
Kasi AI Has Built a Handoff Mechanism into its System
If an interaction becomes too complex or falls outside what the AI can appropriately handle, the conversation can be transferred to a human agent.
This creates a model in which AI handles routine enquiries while human workers focus on complex customer problems, relationships and strategic activities. Rather than replacing customer-service teams, the company sees AI as changing what those teams spend their time doing.
Early Traction and Customer Feedback
Kasi AI is still an early-stage startup, but Temidayo says the platform has already processed five-figure transaction volumes.
That figure should be understood as a statement from the company rather than independently audited transaction data.
Temidayo also says early users have provided feedback that has influenced the development of the product, particularly around logistics automation. He says some businesses that previously spent hours responding to customer enquiries have been able to reduce that workload to minutes.
Again, this is based on early customer feedback reported by Kasi AI rather than independently audited performance data.
For Temidayo, the experience reinforces an important lesson for African technology founders: successful startups need to listen to customers and continuously improve their products. Building a product in isolation and waiting for customers to arrive is not enough.
The companies that succeed, he argues, are those that identify real problems, listen to users and iterate quickly.
Kasi has also launched a referral programme. Partners now earn a commission for every vendor they bring on board, which is becoming a low-cost, word-of-mouth way for Kasi to grow its vendor base.
The Technical Challenges of Building Kasi AI
Building an AI system that operates within third-party messaging platforms is not straightforward.
One of Kasi AI’s major technical challenges has been integrating with Meta’s WhatsApp Business API.
The company has had to navigate access requirements, verification processes and privacy and compliance considerations while ensuring that its integrations remain reliable as usage grows. There is another challenge: businesses do not all operate in the same way.
One merchant may use a particular delivery model while another has completely different logistics processes.
Payment preferences can also vary. Kasi AI therefore needs to be flexible enough to accommodate different business workflows without forcing merchants into complicated technical configurations.
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The Economics of AI
The cost of running AI systems is another challenge. Every customer conversation processed through AI models can generate infrastructure and model-processing costs.
As usage increases, those costs can become significant. Temidayo says Kasi AI has implemented optimisation techniques such as prompt caching and model routing to keep conversations cost-efficient while maintaining performance.
The challenge is particularly important when building for Nigerian SMEs, where businesses can operate on relatively tight margins. The company therefore has to balance affordability with the underlying cost of AI infrastructure.
Why Kasi AI Chose Subscription Pricing
Kasi AI has deliberately avoided a purely pay-as-you-go token-consumption model. Instead, the company has adopted a predictable subscription structure.
At the time of the interview, Kasi AI’s starter tier was priced at ₦18,000 per month, according to the company. The reasoning is that small-business owners need predictable operating costs.
A usage-based AI model could result in unexpected expenses during particularly busy periods. A fixed monthly subscription allows merchants to budget for automation as part of their regular business overhead.
The pricing model is therefore designed around the financial realities of SMEs that may want sophisticated technology without paying enterprise-software prices.
What Temidayo Thinks African AI Founders Need to Understand
Temidayo’s advice to other founders is straightforward: be relentless.
African startups operate in an environment affected by economic volatility, infrastructure constraints and limited resources. For founders, he believes grit, patience and consistency are essential. But persistence alone is not enough.
Founders also need to establish effective sales channels, understand local customer behaviour and continually demonstrate tangible value. A sophisticated product that nobody uses cannot become a successful business.
For Temidayo, therefore, startup building requires a combination of technology, sales, marketing, relationships and persistent execution.
The founders who succeed will not necessarily be those who begin with the most resources. They may instead be those who continue learning, adapting and executing long enough to build something meaningful.
Kasi AI’s Three-to-Five-Year Vision
Temidayo’s ambitions for Kasi AI extend beyond WhatsApp and Instagram.
The company wants to expand across the major platforms where Nigerian and African businesses interact with customers. Also, future integrations could include TikTok and other emerging platforms. The company is also exploring advanced voice-based AI agents capable of handling both inbound and outbound phone calls. That could be particularly relevant in Nigeria, where phone calls remain an important communication channel for many consumers.
Kasi is also building toward a vendor marketplace, where customers can discover vendors through search, and a voice agent that can sell over phone calls. Kasi AI also wants to move further into enterprise customer-service management and CRM functionality.
The long-term vision includes giving SMEs access to capabilities such as:
- Customer interaction analytics.
- Sales funnel tracking.
- Customer retention insights.
- Customer relationship management.
- More sophisticated customer-service analytics
The objective is to create a platform that grows alongside the businesses using it.
For Temidayo, the larger vision is for Kasi to become the commerce and data layer for African social commerce, eventually helping unlock credit for small businesses that banks cannot currently see.
Why Kasi AI Matters to the African Startup Ecosystem
Kasi AI’s approach reflects a broader shift in African technology: building products around the actual behaviour of African consumers rather than simply importing models designed for other markets. The startup is targeting a specific problem created by social commerce.
Businesses can attract customers through WhatsApp and Instagram, but managing the resulting conversations manually can become increasingly difficult as sales volumes grow.
Kasi AI is attempting to close that gap by combining AI conversation, sales automation, payment processing, order management and logistics.
Its localisation strategy—including the company’s stated support for Nigerian languages and voice interactions—also reflects an understanding that successful AI adoption in Africa will require more than simply making global AI models available. The technology has to work within the realities of local commerce.
The future of AI-powered Social Commerce in Africa
Africa’s social-commerce market is projected to grow significantly over the coming years, while Nigerian businesses continue to use messaging and social platforms as important channels for customer engagement. The opportunity for AI companies is therefore potentially substantial. But the competition will not simply be about who has the most advanced AI model.
It will also be about who understands the market, the customer, the economics and the operational realities of African businesses. For Kasi AI, that means building an AI sales agent around the way commerce already happens, which is predominantly through conversations.
The company’s ambition is not simply to create another chatbot. It is to build an infrastructure layer that allows a WhatsApp or social-media conversation to become a complete sales and customer-service workflow.
For Temidayo Aderibigbe and his team, the larger goal is to help African businesses spend less time managing repetitive conversations and more time building their businesses.
About Kasi AI
Kasi AI is an AI-powered sales and customer-service platform designed for online vendors. According to the company, its technology can automate customer interactions, product enquiries, payments, order management, logistics coordination and post-purchase communication.
Kasi is an approved Meta Tech Provider, integrated directly into Meta’s ecosystem. It handles Instagram DMs alongside WhatsApp, allowing vendors to sell across both channels from a single place. Its platform also includes a negotiation engine that bargains within the vendor’s own price limits, automated distance-based delivery pricing, and a system that separates real buying intent from noise.
The company has launched a referral programme through which partners earn a commission for every vendor they bring on board. It is also building toward a vendor marketplace where customers can discover vendors through search, and a voice agent that can sell over phone calls.
Kasi AI is focused initially on social-commerce channels including WhatsApp and Instagram, with plans to expand its integrations over time.
About Temidayo Aderibigbe
Temidayo Aderibigbe is the CEO and Co-founder of Kasi AI, a Nigerian technology startup focused on AI-powered sales automation for online vendors.
About TechPolyp
TechPolyp, a subset of Cloudmesh Global Limited, is a startup discovery and intelligence platform focused on the African technology ecosystem.
TechPolyp’s goal is to make African startups easier to discover, provide founders with exposure, offer investors insights and supply reliable information to the wider startup ecosystem.
