Adaptation: Our greatest undoing? | Sulaiman Adewale | TEDxOsogbo

Sulaiman Adewale, founder of Xara, a WhatsApp-based AI conversational banking assistant, argues that the biggest risk for people is not outdated technology but growing comfortable with systems that merely work. He asks what banking would look like with no interface at all, just a conversation in the language a user already speaks, from Pidgin to Yoruba to Hausa. The talk describes how Xara grew out of his frustration with banking tasks that required fighting an interface not built for him. Launched in 2025, Xara reportedly serves over sixty thousand users. The talk was given at an independently organized TEDx event.

• Why comfort with 'good enough' systems can be the biggest risk
• Xara, a conversational banking assistant built inside WhatsApp
• Supporting banking in Pidgin, Yoruba and Hausa
• Launched in 2025 with over sixty thousand users

What would banking look like with no interface at all, just a conversation in whatever language you already speak? This talk argues that our biggest risk isn't outdated technology; it's how comfortable we get with things that merely work. It challenges us to stop managing what's broken and start fixing it. Sulaiman Adewale is the founder of Xara, Africa's first AI-powered conversational banking assistant, built entirely inside WhatsApp. A self-taught software engineer from Osogbo, Osun State, he spent over a decade in software architecture before building Xara out of personal frustration: he found that even simple banking tasks meant fighting an interface that wasn't built for him. Rather than adapt to broken systems the way most of us quietly learn to, he asked what banking would look like with no interface at all, just a conversation, in whatever language a user already speaks, from Pidgin to Yoruba to Hausa. Launched in 2025, Xara now serves over sixty thousand users and has drawn interest from major financial and technology players, including xAI. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx