Riverbed, announced the results of the Riverbed Global AI & Digital Experience Survey, which reveals that Saudi Arabia is at a critical inflection point, as organisations accelerate their adoption of AI. Despite high optimism, the Riverbed report reveals this reality – while 95% of those surveyed say AI is a top C-Suite priority and 92% agree it provides a competitive advantage, only 31% are fully prepared to implement AI projects now, as Saudi organisations address challenges ranging from data quality to scalability that are impacting their ability to realize the full benefits of AI*.
Riverbed report places Saudi Arabia as an especially critical AI market, as developments in the country are likely to shape AI adoption in the region and beyond. Earlier this year, the country signaled its intention to create a US$40 billion fund to invest in artificial intelligence.
“We anticipate the next three years to be a period of rapid expansion as enterprises seek practical AI approaches and solutions. Our research shows that by 2027, 82% of leaders in the Kingdom expect their organisation to be fully prepared to implement their AI strategy and projects,” said Moueen Zahreddine, Regional Director – Strategic Business, EMEA Emerging at Riverbed.
“With its theme ‘Global Collaboration to Forge a Future AI Economy’, GITEX is the ideal platform for us to showcase our latest AI research. This insight can help guide key stakeholders in the industry at a time when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other forward-focused nations are actively seeking to shape the future of AI,” said Zahreddine.
At GITEX, Riverbed will showcase its solutions for AI Observability, AIOps and Application Acceleration at Stand 18 on Concourse 2.
Today, 59% of Saudi leaders say the primary reason for using AI is to drive operational efficiencies over growth (41%), those numbers flip in 2027, with 62% of organisations saying AI will primarily be a growth driver versus driving efficiencies (38%). Trust in AI is also growing – leaders say they would rather use AI to automate a major IT upgrade (59%), than sit in the back seat of a driverless car in the city (41%).
AI Optimism is High Among Saudi C-Suite and Younger Generation Employees
With AI set to transform organisations worldwide, the survey found enthusiasm for AI is high among the Kingdom’s C-Suite, younger generation employees and organisations as a whole.
- Today, 64% of leaders say AI is a key strategic priority for their organisation, and another 36% say it’s at least moderately important.
- 95% agree AI will help them deliver a better digital experience for end users.
- 68% say AI sentiment in their organisation is positive, with 32% at neutral.
- When asked which generation is most comfortable with AI in the workplace, leaders said Gen Z (61%), followed by Millennials (34%), and Gen X (5%).
The research also found that most organisations have moved past the stages of assessing and experimenting with AI—and today, 73% are accelerating their AI strategies with growing investment in infrastructure and talent; and another 21% are in the final transformative stage where AI is fully integrated into their business processes.
Improving Digital Experience and IT Operations with AI
Riverbed’s previous Global Digital Employee Experience (DEX) survey from 2023 found that DEX is a critical focus for organisations, especially with heightened digital expectations of Gen Z and Millennial employees, accounting for about half of the global workforce. In this year’s survey, enterprises recognised the role AI plays in DEX, as 84% of leaders agreed AI automation is important to improve IT efficiency and deliver an improved digital experience for end users.
Survey respondents ranked the top five ways they expect to use AI within IT to improve DEX within 3 years’ time, which included: automated remediation (68%), workflow automation (67%), feedback analysis (64%), 24/7 support availability such as chatbots (59%), and data-driven insights (53%). Leaders surveyed also said they expect to see many benefits through the use of AI in IT operations, including improved operational efficiencies and productivity, faster IT service desk response times, increased revenue, and a better employee digital experience.
All Saudi leaders surveyed expect to use, test or begin ideation for Generative AI (the most hyped type of AI) for IT operations within 12-18 months. Currently, only 36% of organisations have put Gen AI use cases for IT operations in production or completed prototypes they plan on taking to production. Within 12-18 months, this will increase significantly to 61%, with the remainder of organisations in the ideation phases.
Despite AI Enthusiasm and Benefits, Several Gaps Exist
Despite wide AI enthusiasm, the research identified three major gaps that organisations must overcome to ensure their AI adoption results in benefits and enterprise success.
- Reality Gap. The vast majority of Saudi respondents (86%) believe they are ahead of their competitors (including 36% significantly) when it comes to AI adoption for IT services and digital experience, and only 5% say they are slightly behind. This gap between perception and reality indicates many leaders are overconfident about where their IT function is on their AI journey relative to their industry peers.
- Readiness Gap. As stated earlier, there’s a readiness gap as only 31% of leaders in Saudi say their organisation is fully prepared to implement AI projects now. Additionally, 65% say with AI still maturing, it’s challenging to implement AI that works and scales.
- Data Gap. Nearly all Saudi leaders (85%) acknowledge that great data is critical for great AI. However, of those surveyed, 57% are concerned about the effectiveness of their organization’s data for AI usage, and only about four in 10 rated their data as excellent for completeness (35%) and accuracy (46%), with 44% saying their data quality is a barrier to further AI investment. Furthermore, many surveyed had data security concerns about AI, including 72% of leaders who are worried about their proprietary data being accessible in the public domain.
Strategies to Drive Successful AI Initiatives
Saudi enterprises are taking several steps to overcome challenges and drive successful AI strategies that deliver tangible results. To address AI preparedness, 59% of organisations have formed dedicated AI teams, and 57% observability and/or user experience teams.
When it comes to data, the vast majority of leaders (84%) say using real data, rather than synthetic data, is crucial in AI efforts to improve the digital experience. Additionally, 92% of Saudi respondents agree that observability across all elements of IT is important in an AIOps strategy, and at least 89% say observability to overcome network blind spots—including public cloud, remote work environments, Zero Trust architectures, and enterprise-owned mobile devices—is either extremely or moderately important.
