UAE and Saudi businesses ramp up AI investments - evaluating their levels of 'AI development' maturity.
In a recent report by ServiceNow, Cathy Mauzaize, President of EMEA at ServiceNow, emphasized the importance of addressing the basics of AI effectively to seize the significant opportunities that AI presents. The report highlighted that AI maturity is lagging in Middle Eastern and European enterprises, despite increased investment, due to several challenges.
One of the key issues is the lack of comprehensive leadership direction and clear strategies to integrate AI effectively. Many enterprises are still in the early stages of their AI journey, and this lack of leadership and strategy hinders their progress.
Another significant challenge is the talent shortage. Nearly half of companies in the Middle East report a lack of skilled personnel to scale their AI ambitions, indicating a critical talent gap that hinders maturity.
The report also drew attention to the need for proper AI governance and ethical legislative frameworks. Both regions face challenges in establishing these requirements for responsible scaling of AI applications.
Organisations are also trying to build the right data infrastructure and efficient workflows to support AI, but often these foundations are inadequate or immature, limiting operational AI maturity.
The speed of AI innovation outpaces the capacity of enterprises to adopt and govern these technologies systematically, resulting in a decline in AI maturity scores year-over-year in EMEA. The region's average AI maturity score has dropped 10 points year on year, from 44 to 34 out of 100.
Despite these hurdles, the Middle East's bold AI national strategies and heavy investments are laying groundwork for future growth. To progress, organisations in the region are exploring ways to establish the right foundations for AI data usage.
The report also indicated that technologies such as agentic AI are delivering early returns in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. However, the pace of AI change in the region is faster than the ability of organisations to scale AI in a structured, governed way.
IDC forecasts predict spending on AI in Europe will reach $144.6 billion by 2028. Cathy Mauzaize stated that the focus should be on getting the basics right for AI today. She underlined the importance of structured and governed AI scaling for organisations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
In conclusion, the lag in AI maturity is not due to lack of investment but due to difficulties in building the right human, organisational, and technical capabilities to scale and govern AI effectively. The report suggests that addressing these challenges is crucial for organisations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia to translate their investments into high AI maturity levels.
- Despite the surge in investments, the integration of AI in Middle Eastern and European enterprises is hindered by the lack of clear leadership direction and effective strategies, the talent shortage, and the need for proper AI governance and ethical frameworks.
- In the quest for high AI maturity levels, organisations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia must focus on addressing the challenges in building the right human, organisational, and technical capabilities to scale and govern AI effectively, as suggested by the report.
