Saudi Internet 2025 shows AI tool usage jumps to 45.2% and reveals a widening gap between personal consumption and professional operation

Recent official data released by the Communications, Space and Technology Authority in Saudi Arabia, in the “Saudi Internet 2025” report, showed that the share of AI tool usage among the population jumped to 45.2% in 2025, achieving growth that more than doubled the rate recorded the previous year. Detailed indicators reveal a notable demographic and geographic shift in adoption pace, with females leading at 52.8% compared with 39.4% for males, while the 20-29 age group topped the users at 55.7%, followed by the 10-19 age group at 53.4%.

Geographically, Tabuk region led the kingdom with a usage rate of 58.5%, ahead of the Eastern Province at 53.8%, Medina at 50.8% and Riyadh at 50.2%. The remaining regions showed varied rates: Asir 48.9%, Qassim and Al-Baha each 46.6%, Mecca 43.2%, Northern Borders 42.0%, Ha’il 39.7%, Al-Jouf 35.1%, Najran 32.2% and Jazan 30.7%.

In the map of most widespread software, the ChatGPT application topped the list of AI apps most downloaded in the kingdom during 2025, followed by Google Gemini in second place, DeepSeek in third, then Grok fourth, Microsoft Copilot fifth, Meta AI sixth, Prolificity seventh, Manos AI eighth, Google Notebook LM ninth and Humane tenth.

The numbers reveal a fundamental gap between knowledge-consumption patterns and deep productive employment within business environments.The distribution of use cases showed that the overwhelming majority of users employ AI for “information search” at 80.8%, followed by “idea generation” at 40.1%, “study and education” at 37.7%, creation of multimedia such as images, video and presentations at 25.7%, and real-time translation at 25.1%. In contrast, specialized professional uses sit at the bottom of the list, with “work-related tasks” at only 17.3%, text writing at 14.3%, and “programming and technical tasks” not exceeding 13.5%.

This digital disparity places technology leaders and product managers in the Gulf before a new operational reality.The data clearly indicate that the individual-frequency barrier has fully broken among youth and emerging talent, yet this adoption remains confined to chat interfaces and general inquiries, without yet moving to deep integration in production lines and enterprise systems. If you manage an engineering team or a digital product in the region, the real opportunity no longer lies in offering generic generation tools, but in building interfaces that connect generative model capabilities to resource-planning and internal workflow systems, turning heavy usage from interactive search engines into actual automation of complex tasks and lower operating costs.