Have you noticed how public debate about artificial intelligence swings between excitement and fear? Some people see AI as a quick way to modernize government services or improve efficiency. Others worry it will worsen inequality, replace jobs, or concentrate power even further. Both positions overlook a more practical question that affects daily life: How can AI help South Africans take part more easily and more often in decisions that affect their communities?

By civic life, we mean the everyday ways people engage with public issues and institutions. This includes voting, attending ward meetings, responding to public consultations, engaging with local councilors, participating in school governing bodies, contributing to community safety initiatives, and having a say in decisions about housing, water, transport, and healthcare. These forms of participation shape how power is exercised between elections. When people are excluded from them, democracy weakens even if elections continue to take place.

Civic Participation in South Africa

South Africa does not suffer from a lack of political opinion. It suffers from broken participation systems. Let’s look at elections, for instance. These still matter and every time they come around, all citizens can talk about is whether they will or won't vote and who hasn't or won't register and what this means. The facts are clear, though. A growing proportion of South Africans refuse to participate in the electoral process. We saw in the 2024 May election that only about 58.6% of registered voters cast a ballot, marking the lowest voter turnout in the country’s democratic history. Of roughly 27.7 million registered voters, just over 16 million people voted. This left more than 11 million registered voters who did not participate in the election process.

This decline is not limited to national elections. Participation at the local level is often far lower. Ward committee meetings, Integrated Development Plan (IDP) consultations, and public hearings on draft bylaws or budgets frequently draw only a handful of residents in communities of thousands. In many municipalities, attendance at ward meetings is in the dozens rather than hundreds, additionally submissions on draft policies or bills are often made by organized groups rather than ordinary residents. Civic organisations and municipal reports have repeatedly noted low engagement in IDP processes and public participation requirements, despite these being the main channels through which communities are meant to influence local priorities. Surveys and qualitative research suggest that distrust in political institutions, frustration with service delivery and a sense that participation does not change outcomes all contribute to disengagement, particularly among younger people who see these spaces as inaccessible.

The trend highlights a broader challenge where traditional forms of participation, such as in-person voting and community meetings, are not connecting with large segments of the population. This gap shows that we need to begin rethinking how civic engagement works in a digital age and AI-driven tools might help broaden participation beyond the ballot box.

Evolving Civic Participation

Meanwhile, evidence suggests that people do want to engage with what is happening in their communities. This is not limited to young people. It cuts across age, gender and income. The clearest signal is online. Social media platforms have become some of the most active spaces for public discussion in South Africa and across the continent. According to reports by DataReportal and other data analysis platforms, South Africa has tens of millions of active social media users, with platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp and X seeing sustained growth in daily use.

These platforms are not used only for entertainment. People regularly post about service delivery failures, school conditions, crime, housing problems, corruption and local disputes. Community WhatsApp groups share alerts about water cuts and electricity outages. TikTok videos document protests, broken infrastructure, and interactions with officials. X is often used to pressure municipalities or public representatives into responding. This activity shows a high level of informal civic participation, even if it sits outside official channels.

Civic engagement has not failed because people stopped caring. It has failed because formal participation formats no longer fit.

Civic Participation and AI

Now, let me take you on a practical journey through how machine learning, automation tools, natural language processing tools, and others can help rethink participation from the ground up. This is not about automating democracy or handing decision-making to machines. It is about using tools that fit into everyday routines and reduce the effort required to take part and how they can be used by CSOs. When participation can happen through a phone, in a few minutes, in a familiar language, and at a time that suits people’s lives, more voices can realistically be included in civic decision-making.

AI-assisted civic platforms could help a resident search for a proposed bylaw in plain language. They could receive a summary in isiXhosa, Setswana or Afrikaans. They could ask how the policy affects their rent, their school or their local clinic. They could get a clear answer sourced from official documents. Participation would no longer require attending a meeting at a fixed time. Someone could listen to a short audio explainer while cooking supper for their three kids. A domestic worker could send a voice note on a break about their thoughts. A student could respond to a poll between classes. These contributions could still feed into structured decision-making. AI-assisted tools could help organize input at scale. Pattern recognition (AI) could be used to group similar concerns, areas of agreement could be identified and disagreements could be mapped clearly. Officials would see patterns rather than isolated complaints.

This matters for young people. It also matters for parents, caregivers and workers. Many people are excluded from civic life because participation demands time they do not have. AI can help participation fit around real lives.

Civic participation and AI – in practice

Some countries are already testing what more accessible, digitally supported civic participation can look like. In Taiwan, government and civil society have used online civic platforms to involve citizens directly in policy discussions on issues ranging from transport to digital regulation. These platforms combine digital tools that help summarize large volumes of public input with human moderation to guide discussion and prevent abuse. Instead of rewarding the loudest or most extreme voices, the system is designed to surface areas of agreement and shared concern, helping policymakers understand where public consensus exists rather than amplifying conflict.

In parts of Europe, citizens’ assemblies use digital tools to manage large volumes of submissions. This helps decision makers understand public concerns more clearly. The technology supports the process rather than replacing it.

In Africa, civil society organizations have used chatbots on messaging apps to share election information. Others have gathered community feedback through mobile surveys. These efforts show that people engage when tools are accessible and relevant.

South Africa has an opportunity to build on these lessons. The country has high mobile usage. The number sits at about 124 million active mobile connections in early 2025. That is two SIM cards for every person in the country. We have a wealth of language data to train large language models on our languages and some messaging apps are widely trusted. Audio and video formats are popular. These are just a few advantages we should be considering to pair technological advancements and answering some of our most pressing problems.

AI-assisted tools are not a silver bullet, however. There are real risks:

● Adopting tools without understanding the problem they are meant to solve. South Africa has spent millions on technology that has not improved services or trust. AI could repeat this pattern if used carelessly.

● Copying models designed elsewhere. Tools built for small, high-trust societies may fail in unequal and polarized contexts like South Africa. Here, language, power and history matter. Civic technology must be designed locally.

● Surveillance. Systems that collect civic input could be misused. Safeguards must be built in from the start, where transparency and independent oversight are essential.

● AI as a global competition. Headlines often focus on tensions between the United States and China. South Africa does not need to chase global leadership in AI. It needs to solve its own problems well.

The real work starts with asking practical questions: Why do people feel excluded from decision-making? Where does participation fall apart in practice? Whose voices are missing when policies are designed or implemented? Any use of AI should be tested against these realities rather than abstract ideas of innovation.

Answering these questions means bringing the right people into the conversation from the start. Community organizers understand trust and local dynamics. Young people understand how digital spaces actually work. Public servants understand institutional limits and responsibilities. Technologists understand what systems can and cannot do. Meaningful progress depends on all of these perspectives working together.

AI will not repair democracy on its own. What it can do is help institutions listen better, lower the barriers to participation and make public engagement easier to fit into everyday life. The opportunity lies in how intentionally these tools are used. When AI is designed to connect people to decisions that shape their lives, it can strengthen civic life. When it is adopted as a shortcut or a symbol of progress, it is likely to disappoint.

South Africa needs technology as much as it needs participation systems that reflect how people live, work and care for one another. AI can help build those systems if the starting point is people, not tools.

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Sources

Banner Photo: Deon Ferreira, Election day in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, photograph published in Daily Maverick, 30 May 2024. Article can be accessed here

Disclaimers

This piece of resources has been created as part of the AI for Social Change project within TechSoup's Digital Activism Program, with support from Google.org.

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