Suss Ads expands into AI-powered customer service

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Nairobi-based advertising technology company Suss Ads is expanding into customer-service software as businesses seek to automate growing volumes of interactions across messaging and social media platforms.

The company has launched Suss CX, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that brings customer conversations from WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Instagram into a centralised system.

The move marks a shift for Suss Ads, which has traditionally focused on advertising technology, into enterprise software as companies increasingly adopt AI to handle routine customer enquiries.

Suss CX allows businesses to use AI to respond to frequently asked questions, while human agents can take over conversations that require judgement or specialised assistance. Companies can also choose to have customer interactions handled entirely by human agents.

Suss Ads founder and managing partner Dennis Maina said the expansion is driven by the growing number of channels through which customers communicate with businesses.

“WhatsApp is becoming a core layer of customer-experience infrastructure for businesses. But customers don’t interact with brands through one channel alone,” said Maina.

The company initially developed its customer-service technology around WhatsApp and piloted the solution with betting firm SportPesa before expanding deployments in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Suss Ads is targeting sectors such as banking, betting and gaming, telecommunications, retail, e-commerce and travel, where companies handle large volumes of customer enquiries.

The platform also gives customer-service teams a central view of conversations, allowing businesses to track recurring complaints and questions and assess service performance.

The expansion comes as businesses increase their use of generative AI in customer service, although demand for human intervention remains high.

A Gartner survey of 3,566 business and consumer customers conducted in February and March 2026 found that half of respondents said interactions were easier when companies used generative AI.

However, 87 percent said access to a human agent remained essential when companies deployed generative AI for customer service.

Suss Ads is therefore positioning AI as a support tool for customer-service teams rather than a complete replacement for human agents.

“The opportunity is not to replace customer-care teams,” Maina said. “It is to give them technology that can handle repetitive conversations at scale and allow people to focus on interactions where human judgement is actually required.”

The company is also betting on the continued importance of messaging platforms in African markets, particularly WhatsApp.

Research by Pew Research Center across eight middle-income countries found that a median 73 percent of adults used WhatsApp, compared with 62 percent for Facebook, 36 percent for TikTok, 29 percent for Instagram and 15 percent for Telegram.

The widespread use of messaging platforms has increased the pressure on businesses to manage customer interactions across multiple channels.

For Suss Ads, consolidating these conversations into one system provides an opportunity to expand from advertising technology into a wider enterprise software market.

The company is also supporting WhatsApp Embedded Signup, allowing eligible businesses to connect their Meta business assets and phone numbers to the platform, subject to Meta’s verification requirements.

The expansion comes as African technology firms increasingly develop software targeting business operations, creating new opportunities in areas such as customer service, payments, logistics and business management.

For Suss Ads, Suss CX provides a new revenue opportunity beyond advertising while giving the company a foothold in the growing market for AI-enabled enterprise software.