How AI is fuelling radicalisation and why Kenya must act now

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming both a geopolitical asset and an instrument of soft power. Governments are investing billions to strengthen competitiveness, security and resilience.

In Africa, where the median age is under 20 and mobile connectivity has leapfrogged older infrastructure, its influence will be felt by a generation growing up with the internet as a place to learn, form opinions and find a sense of belonging — making the question of who shapes those online spaces, and to what end, particularly important.

Kenya’s Silicon Savannah has already shown what digital advancement can deliver, but as extremist movements use those same spaces to reach and recruit young people, there is a pressing need to consider how AI could accelerate online radicalisation.

Extremist movements have always exploited new technologies. AI now lets them do so at unprecedented speed and scale. Along Kenya’s coast and in the north-east, networks linked to al-Shabaab use digital platforms to reframe local grievances, youth unemployment, marginalisation, and land disputes inside transnational narratives.

Generative tools can translate recruitment material into Swahili, Somali and coastal dialects, produce synthetic images and audio, and tailor messages to users. Algorithms reinforce the echo chambers in which those narratives flourish. Studies in Likoni, Garissa and Tana River have found that platform dynamics and algorithmic exposure strongly predict radicalisation among young people. What once required years of recruitment can now be attempted far faster, often from outside Kenyan jurisdiction.

Radicalisation crosses borders, undermines social cohesion and fuels political violence. Kenya has lived the consequences: attacks in Nairobi, Garissa and the coast have been amplified, and sometimes coordinated, through open and encrypted channels. The labels differ, but the mechanics are often the same. Online dissemination has also allowed rigid interpretations of religion to travel quickly; violent extremists have sometimes seized on them.

Justify violence

None of this makes religion the problem. It shows how weak guardrails let technology amplify almost any narrative where faith remains a primary source of authority. This same connection to faith gives religious leaders an important role in helping young people make sense of what they encounter online and recognise when someone is exploiting their beliefs or frustrations to justify violence.

Removing harmful content is necessary, but it does little to address the conditions that allow extremist narratives to take hold, and while AI can help identify patterns of radicalisation, decisions about how to respond require human judgement and responsibility.

For children and young people, that responsibility begins with how systems are designed, with safeguards against manipulation built in from the outset and support for families and educators to help them navigate what they encounter online. As these increasingly shape where people turn for information and guidance, technology policy needs to address both the content they distribute and how they influence trust, beliefs, and behaviour, with transparency, accountability, and human dignity guiding those choices. Kenya’s National AI Strategy 2025-2030 and the AI Bill already stress ethics, human oversight and local ownership. Still, the harder task is putting these commitments into practice when the models themselves are largely developed elsewhere, with limited representation of African languages and the communal values that shape how people understand their responsibilities to one another.

Giving those values a meaningful place in AI development requires closer engagement between the people building these systems and the communities whose lives they increasingly shape. This is the premise behind the Faith-AI Covenant, a global initiative launched in New York in April, co-chaired by Colonel Dana Humaid of the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities and Baroness Joanna Shields, CEO of Precognition. Drawing inspiration from the United Arab Emirates’ efforts to combine ambitious investment in AI with a sustained commitment to religious moderation, interfaith dialogue and peaceful coexistence, the Covenant brings governments, industry, civil society and faith leaders into a shared discussion about responsible technological development.

Safety 

Its approach treats faith and technology as complementary, recognising that religious and community perspectives have a contribution to make to the human oversight, safety and accountability of systems that increasingly influence everyday life.

After New York and Paris, the Covenant’s latest roundtable in Nairobi brought policymakers, technology leaders, academics and faith representatives together to consider what this means in an African context. As East Africa’s technology hub, and a city that has experienced both the opportunities connectivity creates and the harm caused by its misuse, Nairobi offers a particularly relevant setting for that discussion. Kenya’s national AI strategy, data-protection framework and long-standing interfaith practice provide a foundation for examining how AI can support human dignity and social cohesion, while giving Kenyan experience and perspectives a greater role in shaping its development.

The value of the Nairobi discussions will ultimately depend on whether they lead to practical cooperation that helps prevent harm before it takes root, especially among children and young people who may be more vulnerable to manipulation and recruitment.

Faith leaders and AI companies have a responsibility to work together to protect those most at risk as the former bring an understanding of their communities and the grievances extremists exploit, while the latter have the means and the duty to make their systems safer.

Working together, alongside governments, educators and families, they can help ensure that prevention goes beyond removing harmful content to addressing how it reaches people and why it resonates.

For Kenya and its neighbours, this is also an opportunity to ensure that African voices and experience shape technologies already becoming part of daily life. Nairobi’s lasting contribution should be to turn that shared responsibility into action, so that the young people who stand to gain most from AI can explore its possibilities safely and confidently.

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