At LEAP 2026 in Riyadh, Nadia Rinsky Head of GTM / Business Development, MENA at JetBrains spoke with Tech Revolt alongside Ruslan Kuleshov, Site Reliability Engineer at JetBrains, about the Kingdom’s push to develop technical talent, strengthen AI governance, and bring greater accountability to the way developers use AI. 

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JetBrains has spent more than two decades building tools used by software developers to write, understand, and maintain code. Its development environments have long been at the center of the company’s work, but the rise of generative and agentic AI is changing the role those tools play. Developers can now bring different AI models and agents into their workflows, creating new opportunities while also introducing questions around control, security, and accountability. 

The company’s work around AI increasingly extends beyond helping developers generate code. JetBrains has been developing capabilities that give organizations greater visibility into AI usage, spending, and access, reflecting a growing concern among technology leaders about what happens when AI moves from individual experimentation into large engineering teams. 

Saudi Arabia provides a particularly relevant setting for those questions. As organizations across the Kingdom increase their use of AI, government and enterprise leaders are having to consider where source code is processed, how AI activity is governed, and whether the additional speed actually translates into better software. 

Saudi Arabia is also investing in the people who will build and maintain that software. Alongside its broader technology ambitions, the Kingdom is putting greater emphasis on developing local engineering talent through initiatives ranging from hackathons and boot camps to startup investment and professional training. 

Rinsky brings a regional and organizational perspective to those developments, while Kuleshov approaches them from the technical side of software engineering and site reliability. Their perspectives converge around a central challenge for organizations adopting AI at scale. Faster development is useful only if businesses can maintain the quality, security, and oversight needed to trust what their teams are producing. 

Inside Saudi Arabia’s AI and Developer Ecosystem 

Q: You had a session at the Riyadh summit on developer productivity in national platforms. What are you seeing from Saudi government customers right now, what are they actually trying to solve? 

A: We had a great session at Riyadh with our client Tabby and our partners, Nebius and Nvidia. There are two things the Kingdom is trying to solve right now. The first is growing the next generation of software developers. One of the goals of Vision 2030 is to have one programmer for every hundred citizens, so there is a strong emphasis on upskilling young talent beyond a standard four-year degree, through national hackathons, boot camps, and investment in startups. 

The second is governance. Saudi Arabia is fourth in the world for AI adoption, and the latest statistics show around 81 percent of Saudi enterprises implement industry-specific AI solutions, and over 80 percent of employees use AI regularly in the workplace, while governance is now becoming a major focus as adoption scales. The government is putting frameworks in place to make sure AI use is safe, secure, and delivers a positive return, with code generated by AI reviewed by developers before it ships, so organizations can trust it. 

Q: There's a lot of discussion around data sovereignty in Saudi Arabia, but less around source code. When government developers use AI coding tools, is that becoming a concern for your customers, where their code is processed and stored? 

A: That's a hot topic in the industry right now, because AI helps a lot, but with that comes responsibility. We are seeing strong interest in local and sovereign AI deployment, particularly where sensitive data and proprietary source code are involved. JetBrains helps organizations maintain visibility and control over how AI is used across their development environments. There are also guardrails needed on the company-side so source code isn't leaked, and many companies here operate in air-gapped environments, which means they don't have access to most AI providers. To support this, JetBrains and Zed developed the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), an open protocol that enables AI agents to integrate with development environments, including locally deployed agents that organizations can run within their own infrastructure rather than relying exclusively on external AI services. 

Q: You talk about measuring AI productivity rather than just adoption. What does that look like in practice, and what sectors are you seeing this most in? 

A: We work with all sectors, but what we're seeing in Saudi is mainly driven by financial institutions, government, and telecommunications. Those sectors are incredibly competitive, so they need to ship cheaper and ship better quality, with lower latency. That's how we measure the productivity of AI: quality, speed, and cost. 

On the Product Side 

Nadia Rinsky, Head of GTM / Business Development, MENA 

Q: How has AI changed what your core products actually do for developers? 

A: Our products have always been our IDEs, integrated development environments for software developers. What's changed with AI is that our IDEs are now open to any agents on the market, so developers can work with whatever tools they're comfortable with, connected to the deep code intelligence we've built up over twenty-six years. That makes it easier to review code, take ownership of it, verify it, and limit the mistakes AI agents can otherwise make. That vendor-agnostic access is the key change in our core products. 

We're also building a governance product, JetBrains AI for teams and organizations, which is very aligned with where Saudi Arabia is headed. 

Ruslan Kuleshov, Site Reliability Engineer, JetBrains 

A: AI made us look at things at a different scale, so we have to be more prudent about what it can do. It can consume a lot of tokens and produce a lot of work, but you want to track how much was spent and how much of that output was meaningful and brought value. That's where we step in, we let you track that and guide your teams on which tools they can use and how much they can spend. Not every company is ready to spend everything on AI, some want to give engineers room to learn for themselves rather than delegating everything to it. We also work at the enterprise level, where you can control billing and licenses, so onboarding a new hire is smooth and easy, and everything is easier to track. We have something for developers, for team leads, and for the department. 

Q: Beyond the product side, what has stood out to you about the developer community here? 

A: One thing I've noticed talking to engineers here is how mindful they are about AI usage and how they always want room for self-education, to keep growing. This is one of the first places I've seen that sense of community up close. There's a program supporting people at every age and professional level, kids learning to code, people of determination getting equal opportunities, and professionals switching industries, and it's all supported by the government. 

Q: You've spent time building JetBrains' presence in the region. What's the opportunity in Saudi Arabia from here? 

A: Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the region, and it's also the largest and fastest-growing tech market in the region. There's a very large junior workforce coming through, and I think Saudi is building up its software development emphasis the same way JetBrains has over the past twenty-six years. That means making sure developers have the best tools available, especially in the age of AI, because AI can make a lot of mistakes, and professional tools help minimize those. 

What Comes Next for Saudi Arabia’s AI Ambitions? 

Saudi Arabia’s next phase of AI development will be measured by more than adoption. As the Kingdom builds a larger technology workforce and brings AI deeper into government and enterprise environments, organizations will have to show that these systems can deliver greater speed without compromising security, quality, or accountability. 

As AI becomes more deeply embedded in software development, the focus will increasingly shift toward where it adds real value, where human judgment remains essential, and how organizations can make sure greater speed does not come at the expense of trust. 

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