APT Symposium: AI rapid adoption risks creating new inequalities

Business Recorder reported that expanding mobile coverage alone will not close Pakistan's digital gap without affordable smartphones, accessible financing and useful digital services. Speakers at the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) Symposium in Islamabad, including Mudassir Hussain and Fatima Akhtar of JazzWorld, warned that fast AI adoption could widen inequalities for women and underserved communities. Hussain argued that the focus should move from network reach to affordability and practical use.

Hussain pointed to four linked issues shaping participation: the cost of services, network availability, the price of devices and how useful connectivity is. He noted that conventional lenders often exclude people without documented income or formal credit records, and called for instalment-based device financing backed by risk-sharing, insurance and targeted subsidies. He also argued that the Universal Service Fund should look beyond infrastructure toward affordable connectivity, digital skills and adoption in commercially underserved areas.

At a separate panel on the gender digital divide, Akhtar warned that AI could create a new gap if women and marginalised communities lack reach to the technology or cannot gain from it. She credited telecom operators, the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, PTA and USF for shrinking the gap in mobile internet use from 25 percent to 8 percent, but stressed that connectivity alone would not be enough. She backed accessible, application-level AI, such as voice tools, so people with weak reading skills could reach health information without text-heavy screens.