South Africa’s 4Sight bets R20M on autonomous AI to transform business ops

South African tech company bets big on intelligent automation that can handle routine business tasks without constant human oversight, targeting sectors from mining to marketing.

4Sight CEO Tertius Zitzke.

When 4Sight Holdings CEO Tertius Zitzke and his team sat down to brainstorm their next big move, they had 150 different ideas for artificial intelligence applications scattered across the table. The challenge wasn’t finding opportunities , it was identifying the ones that could truly transform how companies operate day-to-day.

Fast-forward to today, and the company has committed R20 million over two years to develop what they’re calling “Agentic AI” , autonomous systems that don’t just generate content like ChatGPT, but actually get real work done.

“We’re not talking about AI that writes emails for you,” Zitzke explains. “We’re building intelligent tools that can onboard new employees, approve routine purchase orders, or monitor industrial equipment and predict failures , all without someone constantly managing the process.”

So far, 4Sight has deployed R8 million of that investment, selecting six high-impact initiatives from their original list. It’s a focused bet on what Zitzke believes is the next frontier for enterprise automation.

Under the newly launched 4Sight Automated Intelligence (4AI) division, the company is developing AI agents designed to embed seamlessly into business workflows. Think of them as tireless digital coworkers that never clock out, fall ill, or lose track of information.

Two flagship solutions have already emerged. 4RIA, tailored for heavy industries like mining and oil, acts as a virtual maintenance expert that constantly monitors equipment and predicts breakdowns before they occur. Meanwhile, 4cast functions as a real-time business analyst, aggregating data from multiple sources to deliver instant insights and forecasts.

The early results are promising. As of 2025, the company has reported a 66% return on investment across its current AI programs, with 66.5% of the initial R8 million already allocated to active projects.

Still, Zitzke is quick to address a growing concern around automation: job loss. “Our goal isn’t to replace people,” he says. “It’s to free them from repetitive, time-consuming work so they can focus on what actually requires human judgment and creativity.”

The remaining R12 million will be invested throughout 2026, guided by an internal AI advisory board that evaluates new use cases and their potential impact. Future plans include upgrades to the 4flow process automation platform and the rollout of 4adopt, a tool for assessing organizational AI readiness based on responsible adoption principles.

For 4Sight, this isn’t just about upgrading software, it’s a redefinition of their strategic identity. While other vendors rush to bolt AI features onto legacy systems, 4Sight is building automation-first solutions from the ground up.

“The software industry is being turned upside down,” Zitzke notes. “Companies that don’t embed intelligent automation into their core offerings won’t just fall behind, they’ll become irrelevant.”

It’s a bold vision for the future of enterprise tech, one where autonomous agents augment human teams and simplify operations at scale. Whether 4Sight can deliver on that promise remains to be seen, but the company is clearly positioning itself at the forefront of AI-powered business transformation.