Request ConsultationAI adoption across GCC nations is accelerating as countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invest heavily in infrastructure, national strategies, and talent, enabling rapid AI deployment across industries and driving economic diversification beyond oil.
How is AI Movement Occurring in GCC Countries?
GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries (Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) are witnessing rapid AI transformation from strategic planning to large-scale, infrastructure-upgrading, and agentic AI deployment. AI is projected to contribute up to $320 billion to the Middle East economy by 2030, with the largest relative impact on the UAE’s GDP of 14 and the largest absolute achievements in Saudi Arabia with $135.2 billion.
This growth is primarily driven by government initiatives such as national visions, including the UAE’s 2031 strategy and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. The GCC government is planning to diversify its economy away from oil, making significant investments of billions to become a global home for AI.
GCC nations have invested more than $30 billion by early 2025 for AI projects, with investors primarily from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This investment is supporting the establishment of AI data centers starting between 2024 and 2030.
Which are the Key GCC Nations Investing in AI Transformation?
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are primarily nations investing heavily in the AI transformation to establish infrastructure-heavy and modern AI adoption strategies across the countries.
Geographical AI Maturing Based on Enhancing BFF Scores (2025):
| Countries | Stagnating | Emerging | Scaling | Future-built | BFF Score |
| UAE | 13% | 45% | 37% | 5% | 46 |
| KSA | 27% | 33% | 35% | 5% | 43 |
| Qatar | 20% | 53% | 27% | 4% | 39 |
- Saudi Arabia: In February 2025, at the LEAP 2025 conference, Saudi Arabia unveiled its more than $14.9 billion investments in AI and digital infrastructure. This also includes a $1.5 billion collaborative investment with Groq and Aramco Digital for a huge inference data center establishment. Saudi Arabia also invested a $2 billion in a project with Alat and Lenovo for an AI and robotics manufacturing center.
- The United Arab Emirates: The UAE is expected to establish a 5-gigawatt supercomputing complex in Abu Dhabi. Countries are making partnerships with OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle, and Microsoft for highly potential and broader AI infrastructure investments of around $100 billion.
Infrastructure investments, economic diversification, and national strategies and funding are the major elements driving the AI movement in the GCC countries. These efforts have encouraged around 84% of organizations to adopt AI. The adoption of AI in GCC organizations has increased from 62% in 2023 to 84% in 2025; this is a huge and rapid realization GCC countries are witnessing.
Which are the Major Industries Using AI in GCC Nations?
The rapid use of AI in GCC nations is mainly done by industries, such as healthcare, e-commerce, energy & oils, technology, entertainment, and financial institutions. Where the entertainment industry, including technology, media, and telecommunication leading this growth, while healthcare and industrial, travel, and infrastructure are growing at the fastest rate, majorly due to increased investments, data sovereignty, and technological advancements like generative AI.
Industrial Segments and Their AI Integration for Major Use Cases:
1. Financial Institutions:
- Improve Customer Experiences
- Fraud Detection
- Personalized Banking
2. Energy, Oil, & Gas:
- Decarbonization
- Exploration and Production
- Predictive Maintenance
3. Public Sector:
- Digital Services
- Smart Infrastructure
4. Healthcare:
- Drug Discovery
- Personalized Medicines
- Diagnostics
5. Consumer Goods:
- Personalization
- Quick Services
- Supply Chain Optimization
AI use by Industrial Rank in 2024 and 2025:
| Industries | Ranking in 2024 | Ranking in 2025 | BFF Score |
| Financial Institution | Tech, Media, & Telecom (TMT) | Tech, Media, & Telecom (TMT) | 51 |
| Tech, Media, & Telecom (TMT) | Financial Institution | Public Sector | 47 |
| Healthcare | Public Sector | Financial Institution | 46 |
| Consumer Goods | Healthcare | Healthcare | 46 |
| Industrial Goods | Energy | Industrial Goods | 40 |
| Energy | Consumer Goods | Energy | 39 |
| Public Sector | Industrial Goods | Consumer Goods | 33 |
How GCC Organizations are Maturing AI in 2026?
GCC organizations are rapidly maturing AI in 2026, by revolutionizing from experimental pilots to agentic AI integration and large-scale enterprise scale-ups. 42% of GCC organizations are likely to implement cutting-edge bodies for managing risk and ensuring complaint, ethics, and transparency in AI. The ‘Business-Native’ mindset is driving GCC organizations to mature AI in the upcoming years, compared to just the ‘AI-Native’ criteria of the world.
GCC countries are not adopting AI just for the IT industry but are implementing advanced AI technologies in other industries such as healthcare, energy, entertainment, consumer goods, governance, and the public sector. This support is enabling vendors to adopt cutting-edge models like cloud-first, modular, and microservices-based, secure data architectures for supporting AI at scale value.
- At the stagnating stage, the GCC organization did not take major AI action nor generate any value.
- From 2024, the GCC organization is minded to create foundational capabilities and begin with initial experiments.
- GCC countries focused on developing significant AI strategies and advancing their capabilities to scale up the AI maturity.
- By 2030, GCC organizations are expected to be at the forefront of AI innovations, with investments to develop modern AI capabilities for sustainable value across functions and consistency.
Are GCC Organizations Able to Convert AI Momentum into Value at Scale?
From 2025 to early 2026, the GCC organization has been capable of making significant efforts in converting AI momentum into value at scale. This has been possible with 39% qualifying as AI leaders and 84% integration of AI into at least one business operation. In 2021, GCC nations were performing an experimentation phase for AI integration. GCC has moved from this experimental phase to active deployment, where the adoption of Agentic AI, infrastructure development, and upskilling took place.
To transform this AI momentum into scaled value, GCC organizations can face multiple challenges, with government initiatives and countries' investments backing to improve industrial performance and operations, the recolonization is highly possible. GCC organizations are becoming global peers in AI leadership, with a strong focus on critical areas, including business-centric models, talent & upskilling, high-level engagements, appointment of specialized leadership, and robust data infrastructure.
Furthermore, with a positive change of 82%, GCC employees increased productivity from AI, and 61% employees feel optimistic that this transformation is becoming the backbone of future innovations and efforts.
What Key Strategies GCC Organizations are Applying to Convert AI Momentum into Value?
- Process Redesign: Businesses are focusing on regenerating core business processes to enable AI embedding deeply, with strong government initiatives and investments. The process redesign for AI embedding is highly supported by government initiatives such as the UAE’s AI Strategy 2031 and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. These initiatives are promoting AI as pillor for economic diversification.
- Agentic AI Adoption: GCC organizations are rapidly adopting Agentic AI, and the number has reached roughly 58% in 2025. As AI agents have started to manage end-to-end processes, the shift toward autonomous agents is likely to increase by 2028.
- Accelerating Talent Acquisition: Top leaders are investing heavily in upgrading AI skills by 1.8 times faster than competitors. This acceleration also includes the development of internal AI academies and collaborations with local universities for the development of localized and sustainable talent projects.
- Modernize Data Infrastructure: developing AI-ready data centers and secure data foundations. In late May 2025, the UAE announced the “Stargate UAE”, which is a huge 1GW AI data center project.
- Secure Top-Level Commitment: Top vendors are prioritizing AI strategies to be driven from the top. The chances of appointing a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) has increase with 4.5 times among GCC AI leaders than laggards.
- Leveraging Sector Strengths: The public sector industry is leading the AI maturity rank in GCC countries, especially in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which is enabling a national-level transformation model. This strength is expected to position the GCC as a ‘Tech Powerhouse’ by 2030.
Outcomes:
The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) is becoming a global AI home, due to its heavy investments in large-scale infrastructure, enterprise adoption accelerating across top industries, supportive national strategies, and organization maturity focus, to convert AI momentum into long-term economic value.
GCC nations are prioritizing focus on creating AI academies, reskilling initiatives, and adoption of skills-based models to establish a significant future-ready workforce, to make GCC organization as AI leaders. The GCC organizations are likely to overcome the 10-20-70 model, which involves 10% algorithms, 20% technology, and 70% business process change to gain more value, by moving forward from small-scale initiatives to a ‘Start Smart, Scale Fast’ approach.
About the Authors
Aditi Shivarkar
Aditi, Vice President at Precedence Research, brings over 15 years of expertise at the intersection of technology, innovation, and strategic market intelligence. A visionary leader, she excels in transforming complex data into actionable insights that empower businesses to thrive in dynamic markets. Her leadership combines analytical precision with forward-thinking strategy, driving measurable growth, competitive advantage, and lasting impact across industries.
Aman Singh
Aman Singh with over 13 years of progressive expertise at the intersection of technology, innovation, and strategic market intelligence, Aman Singh stands as a leading authority in global research and consulting. Renowned for his ability to decode complex technological transformations, he provides forward-looking insights that drive strategic decision-making. At Precedence Research, Aman leads a global team of analysts, fostering a culture of research excellence, analytical precision, and visionary thinking.
Piyush Pawar
Piyush Pawar brings over a decade of experience as Senior Manager, Sales & Business Growth, acting as the essential liaison between clients and our research authors. He translates sophisticated insights into practical strategies, ensuring client objectives are met with precision. Piyush’s expertise in market dynamics, relationship management, and strategic execution enables organizations to leverage intelligence effectively, achieving operational excellence, innovation, and sustained growth.