AI on a Naira Budget

Why this exists

Most AI advice was not written for you

Nearly everything published about using AI at work assumes a credit card, a fast unmetered connection, a laptop you do not share, and pricing in dollars. Then it recommends five tools that each cost a monthly fee. If you are teaching in Kano, running a shop from WhatsApp in Kaduna, or trying to get your first technology job from a phone, almost none of that survives contact with your week.

These guides start from the opposite end. What can you actually do with what you already have? Where does AI earn its place, and where is it a distraction that costs you data and time? I have built education technology in Nigeria and trained teachers at scale, and I have wasted plenty of my own time on tools that promised more than they gave. Both sides of that make it into what I write here.

What every guide promises

• A date on it. Tools and prices change constantly. Every guide says when it was written and what it was tested with, so you can judge how much has moved since.
• No figure without a source. If I cannot point at where a number came from, it does not appear.
• The failures included. What did not work, and what wasted my time, is part of the guide rather than left out to make it look tidy.
• The honest question first. Every guide opens by asking whether AI helps this problem at all. Sometimes the answer is no, and saying so is the point.

Who these are for

People trying to break into technology, teachers and school owners, early founders, and anyone building a small thing they hope will grow. If that is you, the guides assume you are capable and busy, not that you need convincing that technology matters.

Tell me what to write

What is eating your week?

These guides are better when they answer a real problem rather than one I imagined. If there is a task that swallows your evenings, write and tell me. I read everything, and the most common problems become the next guides.