AI agents have changed how software gets built. Tools like Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code don't just answer questions. They open the project, do the work, and report back.
But they were built for developers sitting at computers. Across East Africa, the person running the economy is the shop owner, the trader, and the small seller whose whole business lives on a phone.
So we built Amara for them.
What Amara is
Amara is an autonomous agent that runs on an Android phone and uses it the way a person would. She opens apps, reads the screen, taps, types, posts, and replies. She needs no API from anyone, so any app is within reach: TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, online marketplaces, mobile money.
That is also why she travels well. A tool tied to one platform's integration stops at the border. An agent that operates a phone works anywhere that phone works.
She works for the owner, not in place of them. She asks permission before acting, reports what she did, and gives the owner a grace period to answer a customer first. If the owner replies, she steps back.
What she has done so far
These are real numbers from real use in Uganda, not a demo:
- 130,000+ views on TikTok, all organic, zero paid
- 2,000+ views on YouTube, with growing reach on Instagram
- Hundreds of videos posted from a catalogue of 30,000+ Soko 24 products
- WhatsApp replies grounded in the seller's own shop data, so she doesn't invent prices or promise stock that isn't there
Every sale and sent message is verified before it counts. If she can't confirm something, she logs it as uncertain instead of reporting it as done.
Why East Africa
Sellers in Kampala, Nairobi, and Kigali face the same problem. Marketing takes hours they don't have, and a team of three to five people costs $500 or more a month. So most small sellers stay invisible.
The habits are also similar across these cities: WhatsApp for selling, TikTok and Instagram for discovery, mobile money for payment. That is exactly the territory Amara already works in.
Amara posts on the seller's own accounts, so the leads belong to the seller. The seller closes the sale because they know their stock best. Amara's job is visibility and speed, at a price of around $20 a month.
Where we are, honestly
We rate her reliability at 7 out of 10 on WhatsApp and 8 out of 10 on other tasks. Those are our own internal scores, and they have climbed steadily as we fix her weak points one at a time, highest risk first. She isn't finished.
That's why we're expanding through supervised pilots with a small number of sellers per market, not a mass launch. Uganda is our proving ground. Kenya and Rwanda are next. We'll announce Amara publicly once we have around 100 paying clients and the proof to back it.
What comes next
- Pilot sellers in Kenya and Rwanda
- Per-post pricing that matches what a seller actually uses
- A network of Mac and phone nodes working together
- Voiceover and ad generation, so Amara produces complete video ads, not only posts them
Who we're talking to
Amara is the first working proof of Sanaa OS, the platform we are building across commerce, finance, media, logistics, and communication for Africa's cooperative economy. We are speaking with early investors, universities, and institutions who want to see what an agent built for African commerce looks like in practice, before it becomes obvious.
If that's you, message us on WhatsApp at 0706272481.
Written by Aguma Ibrahim Banks, Founder and CEO, Sanaa Co.
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