Strategic Planning for AI-Enabled Cloud Business Intelligence in Commercial Banks: Comparative Evidence from South Africa and Nigeria

Artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and business intelligence (BI) are converging into a new infrastructure platform layer for commercial banks in Africa. Their organizational value depends on strategic, rather than purely technical deployments across the technology stack. This study examines how strategic planning enables AI-enabled cloud business intelligence to support organizational goals in commercial banks in South Africa and Nigeria. A qualitative comparative multiple-case design is adopted, drawing on integrated and annual reports, governance and risk disclosures, regulatory publications, national AI and data-policy documents, and peer-reviewed research. The analysis shows that strategic planning operates as an orchestration capability that leverages AI use cases, cloud and data architecture, resource allocation, model governance, cybersecurity, workforce capability, and performance measurement. South African evidence points to increasingly formalized AI and cloud governance, whereas Nigerian banks exhibit strong market-led digital innovation within a rapidly evolving governance environment. Across both contexts, data quality, responsible AI, human-in-the-loop, third-party resilience, and measurable business integration emerge as conditions for translating AI-enabled analytics into decision quality, operational performance, and strategic alignment. The study develops an integrated framework and makes six propositions for future empirical testing in banking in developing economies.