AI across the Gulf: From ambition to scalable impact

By Nizar Hneini, Gianfrancesco Martinico, Hugo Carreira and Max Pueschner

Across the Gulf, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from a future opportunity to a strategic imperative. Governments now see AI as a lever of competitiveness and national influence, and national strategies across the region have set ambitious targets for 2030 and beyond. This momentum is reshaping how organizations in the GCC act. According to our recent survey, nearly four out of five already include AI in their strategic plans, and trust in AI-generated outputs is high. The expected added value is broad, from faster decisions and better services to new revenue opportunities. With budgets rising and adoption accelerating, the Gulf has moved beyond experimentation: AI is becoming a core enabler of economic diversification and institutional transformation.

Yet for a large number of organizations, readiness lags behind ambition. Many have an AI strategy in place, but far fewer have the foundations needed to scale that strategy. Data quality issues and technology readiness gaps are widespread, and weak collaboration across functions slows delivery. Resistance to change remains common, and funding often stops after pilots because impact is not measured clearly. For both public-sector and private organizations, the central challenge is now the gap between strategic intent and the operational maturity required to turn it into impact.

Closing the gap requires a sharper focus on the fundamentals. Organizations need integrated data strategies, mature technology platforms and clear accountability for business impact. They must strengthen cross-functional ways of working and build the skills needed to embed AI in their everyday processes. Governance also needs to improve to ensure that AI is deployed safely and at scale. The region has the necessary ambition and the investment momentum; the task now is to convert that momentum into sustained impact and deliver the value that national strategies expect.

National ambitions – Bold plans across the GCC

For the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman – artificial intelligence has shifted from a technological choice to a strategic imperative. It is no longer seen as a future opportunity but as a race for relevance, a critical lever of economic competitiveness and geopolitical influence. As the global AI market moves toward an estimated USD 4.8 trillion by 2033, the region is positioning itself not to follow global innovation trends but to help shape them.

Inside the region’s enterprises –  AI rises to the top of strategic planning

The results of our survey demonstrate unequivocally that AI has moved well beyond the experimentation phase within both public and private entities. Nearly four out of five organizations in the region now embed AI in their strategic plans: Half already have a documented strategy aligned with national priorities and a further 29 percent have a strategy under development. On an individual level, nine out of ten respondents expressed complete or partial trust in using AI-generated outputs when making decisions – a remarkable finding given that modern generative AI tools have only been widely available since late 2022.

Organizations in the GCC expect much more than isolated efficiency gains from AI. They foresee enterprise-wide  transformation , viewing AI as a multi-value growth engine that can lift performance across the business. The survey shows that the value narrative is broad and
balanced across the main value pillars. However, customer and citizen experience emerges as the single highest priority outcome, cited by 46 percent of organizations. This indicates that AI is increasingly being positioned to shape frontline services, not just internal operations, while efficiency, value creation and risk continue to attract strong and relatively even attention.

Leaders have concrete expectations for the next two years across each of these value dimensions. In the area of efficiency, they want AI to speed up decisions and improve their quality, not just to reduce costs and boost productivity. In terms of experience, they expect AI to enhance customer and citizen interactions in line with national goals for best-in-class government service delivery and world-leading customer engagement. In the area of value creation, organizations look to AI not just for revenue growth but also for innovation through new digital services, business models and income streams. Finally, in risk and compliance, AI is expected to improve monitoring, detect anomalies and reduce exposure.

Current investment momentum is strong. Eighty-five percent of organizations expect their AI budgets to rise in the coming year, and close to 40 percent foresee a significant increase. AI has thus crossed the boundary between aspiration and commitment: It is no longer treated as discretionary spending but as part of the core investment base required to deliver transformation. Within the GCC, Saudi Arabia and the UAE show the strongest momentum, with 89 percent of organizations in each country planning to raise spending. Qatar follows closely at 86 percent, while Bahrain has a far smaller share of organizations expecting increases. Oman and Kuwait show similarly cautious profiles, although a majority of organizations in these two countries still plan to raise their AI budgets in the next 12 months.

In terms of preferred AI technology, GenAI is the top priority across the GCC mentioned by 35percent of respondents. This shows that organizations are embracing next-generation capabilities rather than remaining focused on traditional automation and machine learning.
GenAI's higher score reflects its immediate, visible impact and ease of adoption. While all advanced AI technologies, including GenAI, predictive AI, and robotics or computer vision, require strong data foundations for enterprise use, GenAI’s rapid uptake is driven by lower adoption friction: it is easier to deploy, requires less upfront integration, and delivers quick wins. Predictive AI and robotics or computer vision remain important (18percent each), but their adoption is often slowed by more complex integration, higher data requirements, and the need for clearer use cases. Traditional machine learning and automation sit lower, at 16 percent, as organizations have already captured the early
automation wins and are now shifting attention from incremental efficiency to more transformative, next-generation intelligence. Overall, each technology offers distinct advantages, so it is likely that they will continue to coexist. In practice, organizations will choose the mix that fits their workflows, data maturity and strategic priorities.

When it comes to selecting a specific AI platform, GCC organizations focus on strategy, not just convenience. This means balancing government-backed ecosystems with compliance needs and performance demands. Around half commit to a vendor-specific AI
or GenAI stack, but 46 percent mix platforms based on use cases, reflecting a need for flexibility in advanced use cases. Such multi-vendor strategies show that advanced enterprises diversify when performance, industry models or domain capabilities matter.

Download the full report to discover the key drivers accelerating AI adoption and shaping the future of digital transformation across the GCC.

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