Let’s get straight to it. Econet’s plan to bring AI to the masses in Zimbabwe with its EcoAI platform is the right move. The core idea is genuinely brilliant: let Zimbabweans access top-tier AI models using airtime and EcoCash. This cleverly gets around the biggest hurdle for digital services on the continent—the lack of credit cards for international payments. As ZimCelebs reported, selling “ecoAI Tokens” is a bold step. On paper, it’s a game-changer.
But an idea is only as good as its execution. And right now, EcoAI feels like a first draft that was accidentally shipped to production.
The Problem with the Product
The goal is to offer a gateway to models from OpenAI, Gemini, and Claude. The reality is a clumsy user experience, a confusing value proposition, and a design that screams, “we asked an AI to design an AI platform.”
The User Experience Has a lot of room for Improvement
First impressions count, especially when you’re asking for money. The EcoAI interface, with its heavy gradients and random emojis, doesn't inspire confidence. It feels less like a professional tech product and more like a high school project. When you’re asking users to part with their airtime, the platform needs to look and feel robust, professional, and secure. A low-effort UI makes people wonder if the same lack of effort went into the security and the service itself.
That’s before you even hit the functional problems. The login process is a fight with OTPs that often fail. The platform seems to forget who you are, forcing you to log in again and again. These aren’t small bugs; they are a broken front door, a wall of frustration between the user and the service they just paid for.
A Very Shaky Value Proposition
Beyond the technical glitches, the business model is a head-scratcher. Why should anyone choose EcoAI?
The only unique answer is the payment method. But is that enough? Let's look at the facts:
No Free Tier: EcoAI demands payment from the first click. Meanwhile, the actual platforms it connects to—ChatGPT and Claude—have powerful free versions. Poe, a similar service, also gives you a free daily allowance.
Higher Cost: You are paying for a service you can get for free elsewhere. The pitch is essentially: “Pay us to use a worse version of something you can use for free right now.”
Worse Experience: As we’ve covered, the user experience is miles behind the native platforms. You’re paying more for less.
When your product is more expensive and less functional than the free alternatives, your only selling point—a convenient payment method—starts to look very thin.
The current strategy bets everything on the idea that the payment barrier is so high that users will put up with a subpar, overpriced product. In a market where people are getting more tech-savvy by the day, that’s a risky bet.
A Possible Game Changer: A Developer API
This is where the critique turns into a plea, because the true potential here isn't a consumer-facing chatbot. It’s in building the plumbing for a new generation of Zimbabwean and African tech.
The real, game-changing opportunity for Econet is a developer API.
Imagine if any developer in Zimbabwe could tap into the latest AI models and, crucially, bill for usage via Econet’s airtime and EcoCash rails. This one move would solve the two biggest problems for local tech creators: getting access to world-class AI and actually making money from their products locally.
An API would unlock a flood of innovation:
Hyper-Localised Solutions: Developers could build AI tools for actual Zimbabwean needs. Think AI-driven farming advice delivered over USSD, Shona/Ndebele language bots, or automated customer service for local businesses.
A Thriving Ecosystem: Instead of being a simple reseller, Econet becomes an enabler—the platform on which hundreds of new businesses are built. This creates a powerful network with Econet at the center, driving token sales at a scale the current app could only dream of.
A Real Moat: This isn't something OpenAI or Anthropic will ever do. A local, airtime-billed AI API is a unique, defensible advantage. It leverages Econet’s core assets—its massive user base and payment network—in a way no global giant can copy. As guides for EcoCash integration show, the local developer community is already hungry to build on these platforms.
As a leading telecom, Econet is in a prime position to build the infrastructure that powers a thousand new Zimbabwean businesses, not just another app that wraps a foreign service. The choice is between being a gateway or being a gatekeeper. We hope they choose the former.