Wesgro has tested an AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot to gather structured data on barriers to investment and is developing a national rollout plan, the agency’s chief information officer said in an interview with CIO South Africa.
Digital tools to improve investment promotion
Jean Scheltema, who leads knowledge and technology strategy at Wesgro, described the chatbot pilot as a collaborative innovation that collected high-quality, structured data at scale while protecting respondents’ privacy. The pilot’s findings have provided the basis for a proposed national expansion.
“A recent example is a collaborative innovation pilot: an AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot that serves as an effective instrument for collecting high-quality, structured data on investment barriers at scale, while preserving the privacy of respondents,” Scheltema said.
The pilot sits within a broader technology agenda at the Western Cape’s trade, tourism and investment promotion agency. Scheltema said Wesgro is on a journey to become a platform business, aiming to enable the organisation to achieve scale, scope and speed while remaining “future-fit, relevant and trusted”.
Why the approach matters for South Africa
The use of an AI-driven chatbot on WhatsApp reflects a pragmatic approach to meet people where they already are. WhatsApp is widely used across South Africa, and chatbots can lower the cost of collecting consistent, comparable data while preserving anonymity—an important consideration for businesses reporting sensitive barriers to investment.
Scheltema highlighted that Wesgro operates across three mandates — tourism, trade and investment — and that the diversity of work creates complex, cross-cutting problems that technology can help address. She stressed the organisation often must deliver with limited resources and therefore seeks smart, cost-effective digital solutions.
- Targeted data collection: The chatbot provided structured insights into investment barriers.
- Privacy-preserving design: The pilot aimed to protect respondent privacy while collecting usable data.
- Scalability: Results from the pilot informed planning for a national rollout.
What Wesgro is trying to achieve
Scheltema described Wesgro’s transformation as incremental: “I’m eating the elephant one chunk at a time,” she said, emphasising steady progress toward a digital future. The organisation’s ambition is to support foreign direct investment, help local companies expand internationally and keep the Western Cape competitive as a destination for business and tourism.
| Wesgro focus | Role |
|---|---|
| Tourism | Promote destination competitiveness |
| Trade | Support businesses to internationalise and grow |
| Investment | Attract foreign direct investment and remove barriers |
She framed her move from over a decade in private-sector advertising into the public sector as driven by the potential for large-scale, tangible impact: the work can affect the economy and people’s lives directly.
On culture, Scheltema said Wesgro encourages innovation despite budget constraints, and that executives across the organisation are driving an innovation mindset. The chatbot pilot exemplifies that approach: a low-footprint, digitally native tool aimed at generating usable evidence that can shape policy and intervention at greater scale.
What to watch next
If the national rollout proceeds, other public agencies and investment promotion bodies may adopt similar methods for low-cost data collection. For South African policymakers, such tools could improve understanding of the obstacles companies face when investing locally. For businesses, a privacy-conscious channel to report barriers could lower the friction of engaging with government.
The interview highlights the practical side of public-sector digital transformation: targeted pilots, attention to privacy, and a focus on scalable solutions that fit existing user behaviour. Wesgro’s approach is notable for leveraging a popular messaging platform and pairing it with AI to turn conversational responses into structured, action-ready data.
Further details on the pilot’s methodology, sample size and timeline for a national rollout were not published in the interview.
