KPMG: Saudi enterprises moving fast on AI with disciplined execution
76% expect AI to deliver enterprise-wide ROI within twelve months
#SaudiArabia #AI – Organisations in Saudi Arabia are outperforming global counterparts in AI confidence, investment size, digital maturity, and value realization, according to KPMG’s Saudi Arabia Tech Report 2026. Seventy-six percent of those surveyed believe AI will be implemented on a large scale and provide measurable returns on investment within the next twelve months; this is the highest level of confidence worldwide. The findings indicate a market shifting rapidly from AI experimentation to large-scale use, relying on centralized governance, strong digital foundations, and ongoing high-level investment. The report is based on a global survey of 2,500 technology leaders, including 70 participants from Saudi Arabia.
SO WHAT? – The new KPMG report puts numbers on something that has been visible anecdotally for some time: Saudi organisations are not just spending money on AI, they have built the governance, infrastructure and execution discipline to deploy it at scale. The finding that 76 percent expect AI to deliver ROI within the next twelve months is striking because it comes from organisations that already have strong cybersecurity maturity, centralised decision-making and evaluation processes. Now that the foundations are in place, the execution is accelerating.
KEY POINTS:
KPMG Saudi Arabia has published its annual Saudi Arabia Tech Report, drawing on a global survey of 2,500 technology leaders including 70 Saudi respondents.
One of the top findings from the report is that 76% of Saudi organisations expect AI to deliver measurable ROI at enterprise scale within twelve months. This is the highest level recorded across all regions in KPMG’s global survey of 2,500 technology leaders. Today, 46% have already report deploying AI in production at scale across multiple use cases.
Meanwhile, 99% of Saudi respondents report active investment in agentic AI, and nearly all indicate that managing AI agents will become a critical workforce skill within five years. Leadership teams across the Kingdom show strong and consistent support for AI adoption in day-to-day operations.
Acceleration of AI programmes is prioritised, with 71% of Saudi technology leaders describe their organisations as fast followers, compared with 63% across the Middle East and 52% globally. The reflects a deliberate strategy to deploy proven technologies rapidly and reliably rather than experiment at the frontier.
With regard to budget, 39% of the Saudi organisations surveyed invest between $100 million and $249.9 million annually in digital technologies, placing the Kingdom at the upper end of global investment bands. The Kingdom also records the highest average financial value realised from digital technologies at approximately $200 million, with no respondents reporting zero or negative returns.
69% of those surveyed report optimised cybersecurity maturity (well above global benchmarks) with similarly strong performance in cloud infrastructure and enterprise data management, providing the digital foundations required for large-scale AI deployment.
93% of Saudi organisations have centralised decisions on new technology selection and prioritisation, compared with 78% globally, enabling consistency, speed and alignment with both enterprise and national transformation priorities.
51% are willing to take bold technology risks, compared with 36% globally, supported by high levels of structured experimentation. At the same time, 99% follow formal processes for evaluating and adopting emerging technologies, including advanced AI use cases.
The leading current AI risk is ‘resource scarcity’, cited by 33% of respondents versus 21% globally, reflecting pressures around specialised talent, infrastructure capacity, energy requirements and data readiness as AI scales beyond pilots. Data bias is identified as the top future concern over the next two years.
Geopolitical tensions represent the most significant collaboration barrier, cited by 39% of Saudi respondents compared with 27% globally, reflecting the complexity of managing cross-border technology partnerships, supply chains and data flows at scale.
Skills, talent and strong data foundations are ranked as the most critical success factors for Saudi enterprise technology programmes, with organisations signalling plans to increase onshore technology hiring, strengthen data sovereignty audits and invest further in data infrastructure over the next twelve months.
ZOOM OUT – KPMG's parallel UAE Tech Report 2026 found that 97 percent of UAE organisations are already embedding AI agents into workflows, products, services and value streams, the highest agentic AI integration rate globally. The UAE also records the highest organisational resilience levels of any region surveyed, with 90% placing themselves in the top two resilience tiers. Where the two markets diverge is instructive: Saudi Arabia leads on AI ROI confidence and investment scale, while the UAE leads on depth of agentic AI integration and resilience. Both markets share fast-follower strategies, near-universal long-term technology plans, and digital maturity levels that consistently outpace global benchmarks. Read our story on the UAE Tech Report here.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: KPMG Saudi Arabia
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UAE, KSA leadership highlighted in Stanford AI Index (Middle East AI News)
Saudi enterprises AI spending surges 160% (Middle East AI News)
Saudi Arabia & UAE lead in sovereign AI adoption (Middle East AI News)