Microsoft South Africa and the public broadcaster, the SABC, have signed an agreement that will see AI and digitals skills programmes flighted on the SABC Plus streaming platform.

The announcement was made during the Johannesburg leg of the Microsoft AI Tour 2026 on Thursday.

“We have a responsibility as corporates – all of us – to build more skills in the country, whether these are in infrastructure, AI or any other kind,” Microsoft South Africa CEO Vukani Mngxati told TechCentral in an interview.

“As Microsoft, we have set a target to build a million new people skilled in AI. We have skilled 1.4 million so far. By partnering with the SABC and putting our AI skilling programmes onto the platform, we are democratising AI skills.”

Mngxati explained that AI fluency is the most basic skill needed by people to engage effectively with artificial intelligence tools needed to thrive in the modern job market. This includes knowing how to structure tasks and delegate parts of them appropriately to an AI model – including using prompting, evaluating responses and gaining proficiency with specific tools.

Through SABC Plus, people interested in learning AI skills will be able to access learning material on demand, complete assignments and earn recognised credentials that can help in securing employment. SABC Plus has just over 1.9 million registered users, with about 25% of these being active accounts. Microsoft said it aims to use the platform’s reach to make AI fluency skills accessible to more South Africans.

Skills development

The drive is part of Microsoft’s broader strategic aim of developing a sufficient number of cloud- and AI-skilled professionals for the local economy. Mngxati said the AI fluency programmes to be flighted on SABC Plus are aimed at developing the most basic level of proficiency, but developing deeper technical expertise, especially in cloud infrastructure, could benefit not only the local economy but present the opportunity for South Africans to export their skills abroad, too.