Saudi enterprises lead the world on AI return expectations

Published: 2026-06-04T10:14:00.000Z

Saudi businesses are not just spending heavily on AI, they expect to be paid back soon. A new KPMG study finds roughly three quarters of organizations in the kingdom expect to run AI at scale and earn returns within twelve months, the highest figure anywhere in the survey.

Saudi Arabia's businesses are not just spending heavily on artificial intelligence, they expect to be paid back for it soon. According to a new study from KPMG published this week, roughly three quarters of organizations in the kingdom anticipate that they will be running AI at scale and earning a return across several use cases within the next twelve months. That figure, around 76 percent, is the highest recorded anywhere in the survey, and it captures a market that has clearly moved past the question of whether AI is worth trying. The report, titled the KPMG Saudi Arabia Tech Report 2026, drew on a global survey of 2,500 technology leaders, including 70 based in the kingdom. The headline number sits alongside an equally telling one, that 46 percent of Saudi organizations already report AI running in actual production, more than double the 21 percent figure seen globally. In other words, this is not a story about pilots and proofs of concept gathering dust. A meaningful share of these companies have pushed the technology into day to day operations and are now watching the results land. The money behind that confidence is substantial. Saudi organizations reported realizing roughly $200 million on average in value from digital technologies, and notably not a single respondent said their returns were zero or negative. Close to four in ten are spending somewhere between $100 million and $250 million a year on digital, which places the kingdom near the top of global investment bands. What KPMG stresses is the discipline attached to all that spending, with the vast majority of firms centralizing technology decisions, following formal processes to vet new tools, and reporting mature cybersecurity. Risk appetite is high, but the report frames it as governed risk rather than reckless experimentation. There is also a strategic temperament worth noting. Seven in ten Saudi technology leaders describe themselves as fast followers rather than first movers, a deliberate preference for proven tools that can be rolled out reliably across large, complex organizations. National platforms like HUMAIN, the Public Investment Fund backed AI venture launched in 2025, show how the kingdom is lining up capital, governance and ecosystems behind enterprise scale deployment instead of scattered experiments. This fits the wider regional pattern, since Saudi Arabia and the UAE have positioned themselves at the front of AI adoption across the Middle East and North Africa, pairing sovereign capital with aggressive enterprise rollouts. The report is not all optimism, though. Saudi leaders point to geopolitical tension and internal governance gaps as the main obstacles to collaboration, and resource scarcity, covering energy, water and specialized talent, has become the single biggest AI related worry in the kingdom. Looking further out, biased data is emerging as the risk executives expect to dominate next.