Only 37% of sub-Saharan Africans use the internet, and those who do seldom rely on traditional web search. A major reason is that bandwidth is scarce and costly. We study whether an AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot can bridge this gap by analyzing 40,350 queries submitted by 529 Sierra Leonean teachers over 17 months. Each month, more teachers relied on AI than web search for teaching assistance. We compare the AI responses to the top results from google.com.sl, which mostly returns web pages formatted for foreign users: just 2% of pages originate in-country. Also, each web page consumes 3,107 times more bandwidth than an AI response on average. As a result, querying AI through WhatsApp is 98% less expensive than loading a web page, even including AI compute costs. In blinded evaluations, an independent sample of teachers rate AI responses as more relevant, helpful, and correct answers to queries than web search results. These findings suggest that AI can provide cost-effective access to information in low-connectivity environments.

翻译：撒哈拉以南非洲地区仅有37%的人口使用互联网，且使用者很少依赖传统的网络搜索。一个重要原因是带宽稀缺且成本高昂。本研究通过分析529名塞拉利昂教师在17个月内提交的40,350条查询，探讨基于人工智能的WhatsApp聊天机器人能否弥合这一差距。每月依赖人工智能获取教学辅助的教师数量均超过使用网络搜索者。我们将人工智能回复与google.com.sl的搜索结果进行对比，发现后者主要返回面向外国用户设计的网页：仅2%的网页源自塞拉利昂本土。此外，每个网页消耗的平均带宽是人工智能回复的3,107倍。因此，即使计入人工智能计算成本，通过WhatsApp查询人工智能的成本仍比加载网页低98%。在盲审评估中，独立教师样本认为人工智能回复比网络搜索结果更具相关性、实用性和准确性。这些发现表明，在低连接性环境中，人工智能能够提供成本效益更高的信息获取途径。