Forty percent of Saudi establishments are ready for AI: Open Text redefines sovereignty through governance of access and interpretation

The Saudi market is shifting its approach to AI technologies from limited testing to large-scale institutional deployment, driven by precise security and regulatory requirements. Estimates from Open Text, a global provider of information-management software, indicate that around forty percent of organisations in the Kingdom now fall into the qualified and ready categories for employing these solutions, strengthening Riyadh’s position as one of the most strategic markets for building local technical capabilities and linking them to the actual needs of business environments.

This field transition, observed by the vice-president and head of the company for the Middle East and Turkey, George Chamberi, was accompanied by the decision to establish the regional headquarters in Riyadh to combine global solutions with field expertise in consulting and designing technical systems. Institutional priorities are no longer limited to testing a model’s ability to perform a specific task, but,Sovereignty has become linked to precise knowledge of the data sources that AI accesses, the controls governing them, and the ability to interpret and audit its decisions., especially in sensitive sectors such as government services, finance, energy and health care.

In terms of actual implementation, major Saudi entities have begun subjecting their information-intensive processes to automation platforms, with Alfanar adopting large-scale document and invoice processing solutions to enhance operational oversight, while Alinma Bank deployed a service-management platform to boost automation and monitor operational incidents more efficiently. This trend reflects companies’ bet on platforms such as Affiator and its tools for managing and coordinating AI agents, ensuring that the organization keeps agents within the bounds of trusted information and strict compliance with local regulations, without drifting into uncontrolled proliferation of agents.

This shift demands an immediate reshuffling of operational priorities for technology managers and development teams across the Gulf and the region, as the criterion for selection and contracting moves from mere fascination with generative model capabilities to examining the readiness of data-management infrastructure and controlling data-flow pathways. An organization preparing to deploy intelligent agents is now required to review access policies and audit access logs before launching any tool, making regulatory compliance and data-governance skills the most urgent and sought-after competencies in the local market, ahead of mere prompting and command-engineering skills.

The consolidation of institutional tech presence in Riyadh confirms that the economic value of AI will not be realized through isolated models, but through organisations’ ability to extract reliable value from their own data while fully complying with national laws, making auditability and interpretability the first line of defence that protects the enterprise and ensures the sustainability of its digital operations.