Visiting Jo’burg soon? Then you have to meet Jo, Johannesburg’s newest tour guide. And no, it’s not a person. It’s an AI chatbot designed to help visitors and locals navigate the city through natural, casual conversation.
The team behind it describes Jo as having the personality of a friendly Joburg taxi driver – helpful, sharp, a bit cheeky, and full of quick information.
While tourism is a big part of the project, it goes deeper than that. The creators want Johannesburg to “have a voice” in the world of AI, one that reflects the city’s rhythm, humour and contradictions instead of the polished, generic tone common in global tech products.
They also see Jo as a tool for improving AI literacy, helping people understand how artificial intelligence works rather than treating it like a mysterious black box.
The team pointed out that most AI systems are still trained primarily on Western data. Jo, they say, is part of a push for African cities to start shaping how global technology understands and represents them. They linked this to population projections showing that by 2050, about a quarter of the world’s population will be African, arguing that as data follows people, African voices should play a bigger role in shaping future AI.
Jo’s personality leans into the idea that “two things can be true” about Johannesburg. The city can be intense, unequal and overwhelming at times. Safety requires awareness. But it’s also energetic, joyful and deeply resilient. People who live here stay because no other city moves the same way or feels the same way. Jo tries to speak from within that reality, without romanticising it or sanding down its edges.
In practical terms, Jo combines cultural insight with useful tools. The “What the Jozi” feature helps users understand what they’re seeing, eating or hearing, whether it’s a local dish, a song playing in the background, or a building they’ve just walked past. Users can simply take a photo, send it to Jo, and get context and explanations back. There’s also “Jo’s Favourite Things,” a curated list of places and experiences around the city.
One of the more playful features is the Nando’s concierge. It helps users find the nearest branch, explains the menu, applies dietary filters and even helps with ordering
through Uber Eats. The team also mentioned plans to expand this to include other popular Johannesburg restaurants and food spots.
Beyond that, Jo includes standard travel tools like translation, a currency converter, weather updates, world clock and metric conversions. For visitors, especially international tourists coming to Johannesburg or South Africa for the first time, this might be where Jo becomes most useful.
Instead of switching between multiple apps and guides, they can rely on one platform that handles global travel basics while also offering deep local knowledge of the city. It also includes a city centre mini guide, a weekly events feed, and a “snap and chat” function that lets tourists quickly make sense of their surroundings.
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On the safety side, Jo offers a “Street Smarts” section with practical advice on moving through the city, including guidance on transport options, interacting with locals and emergency contact details.
Jo supports all 11 official South African languages, with the team claiming around 80% fluency across them, and it is also fluent in all languages supported by ChatGPT, since it runs on ChatGPT infrastructure. This makes it especially accessible for both locals and international visitors.
South Africa is already among the world’s stronger adopters of AI tools, and Jo is being positioned as part of a broader effort to ensure African voices actively shape this technology rather than just reacting to it. The team also emphasised that Jo will improve through user interaction and feedback, encouraging people to engage with it and share their experiences via their platform at jhbinyourpocket.com.
- This story was produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.
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