Emma Okonji

Global cities like London, Dubai, New York City, Washington DC, and Amsterdam top the rankings of the world’s most intelligent cities according to new research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Although listed cities excel in different areas, none of them is leading across every domain, underscoring that no city has mastered every relevant dimension.

The report also revealed an interesting urban trend across Africa’s major economic hubs, citing African cities like Lagos in Nigeria, Johannesburg in South Africa, Casablanca in Morocco, and Cairo in Egypt, as African cities that are high adopters of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology globally, despite infrastructure deficits.

While all four cities currently sit in the report’s “Developing” maturity tier due to deficits in digital infrastructure and star-tup funding, the citizens of the listed African cities are among the most active and optimistic AI adopters globally, the report said.  

The report, tagged: “BCG’s Intelligent Cities Index 2026: How AI Shapes Urban Living’, is the firm’s inaugural assessment of how 61 of the world’s biggest cities across 39 countries use technology to serve their residents and businesses. The report evaluated cities across five domains of intelligent city maturity: outcomes, strategy, adoption, ways of working, and enablers. The report is of the view that a city’s overall maturity level reflects its combined maturity across domains such as leading, accelerating, emerging, or developing.”

Addressing African’s lead in citizen’s AI appetite, the report viewed the African indices as supercharged by young demographics, where over 50 per cent of the population in Cairo, Casablanca, and Lagos is under the age of 35, as these cities land squarely in the “AI Enthusiasts” cohort.

According to the report, Casablanca achieved a top ranking in AI adoption and smart city app usage, outpacing numerous established international metropolises. 

The report also found that cities do not need to begin with or focus solely on world-class infrastructure or deep funding ecosystems to improve resident outcomes. “Expanding intelligent AI-enabled city services can strengthen quality of life and overall intelligent city maturity regardless of a city’s starting point, demonstrating that multiple pathways exist to becoming a smarter city, aligned with each city’s current maturity across domains, “the report said.

The report uncovered a clear alignment between how frequently residents use Generative AI (GenAI) tools and how positively they view AI’s future impact.

According to the report, residents who use AI most often are also the most optimistic about the technology’s potential to improve opportunity, productivity, and quality of life. 

“This creates a virtuous circle. Positive experiences with AI increase resident confidence, giving city leaders a further opening to enable AI more fully and provide more value to beneficiaries through new and improved intelligent city services. This value feeds yet more optimism, which drives more engagement, innovation, and scaling as the cycle repeats,” the report said, adding that cities in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are particularly prominent in this pattern, showing the strongest GenAI momentum, pairing high usage with high optimism about its future impact.

Analysing the report, the Managing Director and Partner at BCG, Akram Awad, who is also the co-author of the report, said: “AI is a key foundation of the intelligent city, and AI adoption and optimism are not confined to the ‘usual suspects’ technology hubs. Cities around the world are creating value for residents in different ways and from different starting points. We built the Intelligent Cities Index to provide an objective, holistic view of how cities shape and enable their AI ambitions and how effectively those ambitions translate into meaningful improvements in people’s lives.”

Partner and Director at BCG, Rami Mourtada, who is also a co-author of the report said: “Given today’s rapid pace of change and evolving resident expectations, building a city’s intelligent foundation, paired with focused improvement across enablers requires urgency. But city leaders and business partners don’t need to try to do everything all at once. It’s a longer-term horizon and there is no single pathway forward. Intelligent city momentum comes from making intentional, and sometimes incremental, choices now and building for a smarter tomorrow with a clear, comprehensive roadmap.” 

To move from “Developing” to higher maturity tiers, the report emphasises that African city leaders must address critical “soft enabler” bottlenecks; specifically venture capital access, tech talent retention, and institutional AI governance.

However, BCG’s analysis showed that cities do not need world-class infrastructure to make progress.

“By adopting a “focused specialist” approach, African urban centres can partner with local innovation ecosystems to deploy targeted, incremental AI services that address residents’ most immediate daily needs, converting grassroots enthusiasm into long-term economic growth, “the report further said.