Smartphones are everywhere, but not for everyone. One-third of adults in developing countries do not own smartphones. Yet, smart phones dominate the digital for development narrative. It’s time for a change.
The GSMA’s 2025 Connectivity Report cites that 3.1 billion people live within mobile broadband coverage but still don’t use it primarily due to cost, digital literacy, or lack of relevant content.
Feature Phone First
Smartphones may dominate global headlines, but in practice, the most commonly used digital device in Africa and South Asia is still the humble feature phone.
For many, the barriers to smartphone usage go beyond affordability.
- A smartphone may be shared among several family members, controlled by the male head of household, or reserved for income-generating uses rather than browsing or learning.
- Women, rural residents, and low-literacy populations are the most affected, often excluded not because they lack curiosity or motivation but because digital tools are simply not designed for them.
So what’s the solution to getting billions of people access to the digital economy, and, going forward, access to AI-enabled products and services? Voice. It still matters.
SMS Is Dead
I’ve been working with voice-based mobile channels for almost a decade now, and I naturally expect to hear partners tell me why they are using SMS: it’s cheaper than other methods.
I’ve always pushed back.
Our very own Wayan Vota wrote back in 2019 that the era of SMS was dead because rural audiences and women engage more with voice-based services and are simply tired of receiving SMS messages.
Despite that, for years SMS was the default tool for digital outreach. I feel vindicated by two reports that show the SMS era is truly over.
1. SMS is Expensive
A new Center for Global Development post shows that SMS, long considered the “universal” low-cost channel, is becoming prohibitively expensive for development actors. The report states that the median cost of sending 100 SMS messages globally is $5.33, and in countries like Pakistan, that same 100-message batch can cost more than $44!
2. SMS is Ignored
In 2024 CGIAR research highlighted that smallholder farmers overwhelmingly prefer voice communication to text. One of my own learning from this report was that farmers actually struggle to read SMS messages due to poor eyesight. They also have lower levels of literacy, use small keypads, and rarely scroll beyond the first screen of an SMS. Even when they own smartphones, many farmers keep mobile data turned off to save bandwidth.
Voice is Necessary Now
At UNGA this year, Bill Gates outlined his four big dreams about AI. He talked about anyone in a low-income country being able to access health services, agricultural advice, or education in their local language over a voice call.
AI doesn’t have to mean apps or broadband.
Voice-enabled AI systems can already respond to questions through ordinary phone calls, making it possible to bring intelligent assistance to any basic mobile device. In 2023, Viamo piloted Ask Viamo Anything in Zambia, a voice-based Generative AI service that lets people in low-resource settings access trusted information simply by making a phone call.
To date, 40,000 callers have asked over a million questions. In their case study of Ask Viamo Anything, GSMA found that users trusted the service, found it easy to use and appreciated the anonymity to ask questions that might be considered taboo.
Voice Makes Business Sense
On a recent trip to Rwanda, I had the privilege of observing rural users of the MTN mobile network dialing into a three-digit shortcode, asking questions by speaking into the phone in Kinyarwanda, and within a few seconds getting an answer, just like you or I would by using Gemini or ChatGPT.
The call didn’t cost them anything, and they didn’t need a smartphone.
I remember watching a first-time grandmother ask the GenAI assistant how many times a day her daughter should breastfeed her newborn baby. When I asked her whom she would have previously asked such a question, she said, “No one, only God.”
This is why MTN Rwanda, at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Kigali, became an early adopter of voice-enabled AI in local languages.
They launched Ms Baza, a Generative AI assistant that speaks English, French, Kiswahili, and Kinyarwanda and will in the future offer citizens and visitors in Rwanda access to information and services through a simple phone call. No internet or smartphone required.
This is exciting not only because it shows that voice AI works on simple mobile phones, but more importantly, that it is commercially viable. This is no donor-funded project, it’s one of the world’s best-known mobile networks putting their stamp of approval on voice and voice-enabled AI. We should take notice.
So for readers who think that voice is nostalgic, it’s not. It’s necessary.
Sulakshana Gupta is Vice President for Philanthropy Partnerships at Viamo.
