Across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the conversation around AI is entering a more practical phase. Ambition remains high, but expectations are becoming more defined. This year, AI will be judged less on promise and more on performance, with organisations expected to demonstrate measurable outcomes, clear governance, and operational resilience.

As such, we see there are three forces shaping what comes next in the region: the need to prove value at scale, the rise of agentic approaches operating inside enterprise controls, and the acceleration of modernisation, as legacy workflow dependencies reach critical deadlines.

By Samir Akel, Regional Vice President for Emerging Markets at Nintex

Measurable value becomes the new baseline

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made significant investments in digital transformation over the past decade. According to PwC, AI alone is expected to contribute up to USD 135 billion to Saudi Arabia’s economy and USD 96 billion to the UAE’s economy by 2030, equivalent to around 12 to 14 percent of GDP in both markets. As that investment matures, boards and executive teams are increasingly focused on how AI delivers returns today, rather than purely in the future. 

This shift is already visible. In the UAE, federal and local government entities continue to expand shared services, digital citizen platforms, and paperless initiatives, while Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programmes are driving large-scale transformation across healthcare, energy, logistics, and public services. In these environments, isolated AI pilots are no longer sufficient. Leaders are prioritising automation programmes that reduce cycle times, improve compliance, and increase workforce productivity across entire operating models. 

Industry analysts reinforce this direction. Forrester has predicted that process intelligence will play a decisive role in helping organisations recover value from AI investments by providing the operational context many AI initiatives lack. In practical terms, this means AI must be connected to real workflows, measured against business KPIs, and governed as a core enterprise capability. 

Governance and trust are shaping AI architecture 

In the Middle East, AI strategy is inseparable from governance. Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law is fully enforceable, with penalties that can reach millions of Riyals for non-compliance. In parallel, national data governance frameworks are setting clear expectations for how government and regulated-sector data is managed, shared, and protected. 

In the UAE, the Personal Data Protection Law applies across most sectors, while financial free zones maintain mature regulatory regimes aligned with international standards. The UAE has also published a national AI Charter outlining principles for responsible AI development, including transparency, accountability, and human oversight. 

For organisations operating across both markets, this creates a clear requirement. AI systems must be auditable, policy-aware, and designed with governance built in from the outset. This year, we expect to see that enterprises will increasingly favour platforms that can demonstrate decision traceability, workflow controls, and compliance reporting as standard, rather than as add-ons. 

This is why orchestration is becoming central to AI strategy. Coordinating systems, people, data, and policy across the full lifecycle of work is essential for operating at national and enterprise scale. 

Agentic Business Orchestration enters enterprise reality 

AI agents are moving quickly from experimentation to deployment. The opportunity is significant in regions characterised by high service volumes, complex approvals, and strict compliance requirements. According to regional digital government benchmarks, Saudi Arabia and the UAE both rank among the world’s top performers for digital public services, creating fertile ground for intelligent automation at scale. 

At Nintex, we refer to this next phase as Agentic Business Orchestration. It is an approach that embeds goal-oriented AI agents inside governed workflows, allowing organisations to automate decisions and actions while maintaining enterprise-grade controls. Over the next year, we expect to see agentic capabilities deployed across case management, employee onboarding, procurement, customer and citizen services, and compliance-led approvals. 

The organisations that move fastest will treat agents as part of a managed operating model, rather than as standalone tools. Value will come from orchestration, not autonomy alone. 

Workflow modernisation becomes a continuity priority 

Alongside AI adoption, many organisations face a pressing operational reality. Legacy workflow technologies are approaching end-of-life milestones that carry a genuine business continuity risk if they are ignored. 

Microsoft has confirmed the retirement of SharePoint 2013 workflows in Microsoft 365 by April 2026. Across the Middle East, many organisations still rely on these workflows for HR processes, approvals, service requests, and internal governance. When these workflows stop running, services will stall. 

Forward-looking organisations are already acting. They are cataloguing workflows, identifying mission-critical processes, and redesigning them using modern platforms that support governance, analytics, and AI-enabled optimisation from day one. What we expect to see, as a result, is that workflow modernisation will be less about technology refresh and more about operational resilience. 

Partners evolve into managed intelligence providers 

The Middle East’s transformation programmes are supported by strong partner ecosystems. As expectations rise, partners are evolving beyond implementation to deliver measurable outcomes over time. 

We expect Managed Service Providers and system integrators to increasingly operate as managed intelligence providers. Their remit will extend to workflow governance, automation operating models, process intelligence, and the controlled deployment of AI in production. For many organisations, this model offers a pragmatic path to scale while maintaining compliance and performance standards. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE will continue to lead in ambition. The differentiator in 2026 will be execution quality. Organisations that connect AI to real work, govern it with intent, and measure outcomes rigorously will be best positioned to sustain momentum. 

By helping organisations orchestrate the work that matters across people, systems, and AI, with governance and measurable value at the centre, AI will become a durable advantage, with automation supporting delivery at national and enterprise scale.