Saudi Arabia and the UAE are sharply increasing AI investment, but businesses in both markets still face challenges turning that spending into operational change, according to ServiceNow’s 2026 Enterprise AI Maturity Index.
Organisations in Saudi Arabia raised AI spending by 124% year on year, compared with 105% in the UAE. Yet the countries scored 50 and 48 out of 100, respectively, on the maturity index. Saudi Arabia’s score rose 17% year on year, while the UAE’s increased 13%.
The report is based on a ThoughtLab survey of 4,500 executives across 19 countries and 12 industries, including 100 executives in each country. It assesses AI vision, leadership, governance, data, workflows, talent and value creation.
Agentic AI has been implemented by 48% of Saudi organisations and 57% of those in the UAE. However, only 10% and 7%, respectively, are using it to create autonomous workflows, suggesting that AI is still mainly helping employees work faster rather than reshaping business operations.
Legacy systems and data management remain major obstacles. Only 13% of Saudi organisations and 14% of UAE organisations have replaced legacy systems with AI-integrated platforms. Inadequate data accuracy, access and management was cited as a major barrier by 67% of Saudi executives and 77% of UAE executives.
Organisations in both countries expect AI to represent almost one-fifth of total IT budgets by 2027. The report also found that only 18% of Saudi organisations and 16% in the UAE have established AI testing, auditing and risk management processes.
Source: Middle East AI News
