AI spending increased 124% in Saudi Arabia, yet only 21% are turning AI investment into real returns.
18 August, Saudi Arabia – ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), the AI control tower for business reinvention, today released its third edition of the Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2026, revealing that organisations in Saudi Arabia are investing heavily in artificial intelligence but struggling to turn that investment into measurable results. The findings come as Saudi Arabia continues to advance its ambitious digital transformation agenda, supported by national initiatives to strengthen digital infrastructure, accelerate AI adoption, and build a data-driven economy aligned with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
Saudi organisations score 50/100 for overall AI maturity, up from 33/100 last year. While leadership, vision and strategy scores reach 56, AI-enabled workflows lag behind at 39. The finding reflects a broader regional trend. Across Europe and the Middle East (EMEA), AI-enabled workflows are the lowest-scoring pillar. In other words, organisations increasingly know what they want AI to achieve but many are still struggling to embed it into day-to-day workflows. Building the right data, governance and workflow foundations remains a critical barrier to scaling AI across the enterprise.
Naif Alanazi, Area Vice President, Saudi Arabia at ServiceNow said: “Saudi organisations are among the most ambitious adopters of AI across the region. The challenge today is not investment or commitment; it is building the operational foundation that enables AI to work seamlessly across the enterprise and deliver real business value. Organisations that have successfully closed this gap are already achieving returns that set them apart from their peers.”
Saudi Arabia also stands out as one of the region’s leading AI markets. AI spending grew by 124% over the past year, outpacing major markets including Germany (118%), France (113%), and the United Kingdom (102%), while exceeding the global average of 110%.
AI is rapidly becoming one of the biggest investment priorities for organisations in Saudi Arabia. Organisations increased AI spending by 124% year on year and expect to allocate 19.4% of IT budgets to AI by 2027. The picture is similar across EMEA, where organisations increased AI spending by 113% over the past year and expect AI to account for 20.1% of IT budgets by 2027. This rapid growth comes amid increasing regulatory and competitive pressures, requiring organisations to modernise their digital foundations while demonstrating measurable returns from AI investment. In Saudi Arabia, 67% of organisations identify data accuracy and data management as one of the most significant barriers to achieving those returns.
The four foundation gaps
The research points out four areas where organisations continue to come up against barriers when trying to scale AI.
Data foundations: While 73% of executives across EMEA cite inadequate data accuracy, accessibility and management as the biggest obstacle to scaling AI, 67% of organisations in Saudi Arabia identify the same challenge.
Governance and testing: Only 19% of organisations across EMEA have implemented AI testing, auditing and risk management processes. In Saudi Arabia, that figure falls to 18%, reinforcing governance as a critical prerequisite for scaling AI with confidence.
Legacy systems: Just 15% of organisations across EMEA have replaced legacy technology with integrated platforms. In Saudi Arabia, the figure is 13%, leaving AI initiatives running across fragmented environments.
Autonomous workflows: 48% of organisations in Saudi Arabia use agentic AI, compared with 57% across EMEA. However, only 10% use it to create fully autonomous workflows, compared with 9% regionally, highlighting that AI is still primarily being used to support employees rather than fundamentally redesign how work gets done.
Governance is helping AI leaders pull ahead
Most organisations struggle to generate meaningful AI returns. But 21% have cracked the code – and it’s not because they spend more.
What separates them is governance maturity. The organisations generating the strongest AI returns (161% ROI today, 194% within two years) are the same ones with the most mature governance, data management, and risk controls. They’re five times more productive, 2.6x better at scaling AI, and 2.5x stronger at managing risk.
This defies the assumption that governance slows innovation. In fact, the opposite is true: mature governance enables these organisations to scale confidently and move faster than their peers.
In Saudi Arabia, this is becoming increasingly important as national AI strategies and regulatory initiatives continue to accelerate AI adoption across both the public and private sectors. As organisations scale AI to support the Kingdom’s digital transformation ambitions, robust governance provides the foundation for trusted, responsible, and enterprise-wide AI adoption, turning investment into long-term competitive advantage.
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Methodology
*The Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2026 was conducted by ThoughtLab on behalf of ServiceNow. The study surveyed 4,700+ senior executives across 16 countries, measuring AI maturity across seven pillars: leadership, vision, and strategy; management and culture; data modernisation; AI governance; generating value; talent and skills; and AI-enabled workflows. 150 executives were surveyed in Saudi Arabia.
About ServiceNow
ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is the AI control tower for business reinvention. The ServiceNow AI
Platform integrates with any cloud, any model, and any data source to orchestrate how work flows
across the enterprise. By unifying legacy systems, departmental tools, cloud applications, and AI
agents, ServiceNow provides a single pane of glass that connects intelligence to execution across
every corner of business. With more than 100 billion workflows running on the platform each year,
ServiceNow helps organisations turn fragmented operations into coordinated, autonomous
workflows that deliver measurable results. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at
www.servicenow.com.
