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Koos Bekker, the former Naspers chief executive officer who now chairs both Naspers and its Amsterdam-listed investment arm Prosus, has overseen the group's most decisive strategic shift in more than two decades, with management declaring that the Johannesburg-founded giant has completed its transformation from passive technology investor to global artificial intelligence operator.
In an investor presentation this week, group chief executive officer Fabricio Bloisi described the company's trajectory as a three-stage evolution: from tech investor to e-commerce operator to AI platform. Bloisi, who took the helm in mid-2024, said the pivot moves Naspers and Prosus away from the holding structure that defined the group under Bekker's original investment thesis and toward direct operating control of AI products inside its portfolio companies.
At the center of the shift is Toqan, a proprietary AI platform developed in-house and now being offered across the group's commerce, classifieds and food delivery brands. Toqan is being opened to about 5 million restaurant, hotel and dealer partners to supply automated marketing, finance and planning agents, a distribution push that management argues gives the group an AI footprint few peers can match.
Prosus has separately deployed roughly 37,000 AI agents across its portfolio to automate internal workflows, part of what executives described as an "AI-first" reorganization. The group's listed entities have leaned on the shift to justify elevated capital spending and to reset the investment case after years of debate over the conglomerate discount that has long weighed on Naspers stock.
The pivot carries high stakes for Bekker himself. The South African billionaire remains among the largest individual shareholders in both Naspers and Prosus, and the market's view of the AI operator model will shape the value of that holding. Bekker and his family sold about 2.5 billion rand ($133 million) worth of Naspers and Prosus shares in late 2025, trimming but not unwinding his long-standing exposure.
Naspers' legacy Tencent stake, acquired under Bekker's leadership in 2001, remains the single largest asset on the balance sheet and has surged in recent weeks on the back of Tencent's own AI product launches, lifting Prosus and Naspers alongside it. Management has signaled that capital released from future Tencent sell-downs will fund further AI investment rather than return solely to shareholders.
The shift cements Bekker's legacy, moving Naspers beyond its original venture bet and into direct competition with Alphabet, Meta and Alibaba on operating AI products.
