Saudi Arabia leads EMEA in AI spending growth at 124% but operational maturity remains the obstacle

Enterprises in Saudi Arabia recorded the highest annual growth rate in artificial intelligence spending across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region at 124%, outperforming Germany at 118%, France at 113%, and the United Kingdom at 102%, and exceeding the global average of 110%, according to results from the third edition of the Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2026 released by ServiceNow.

Spending ambition outpaces implementation maturity

The figures reveal a contradictory picture. Saudi enterprises are among the most ambitious regionally in adopting artificial intelligence and spending strategies, according to Eng. Naif Al Enazi, Vice President of ServiceNow in the Kingdom, yet the overall maturity index scored 50 out of 100, and the AI-enabled workflows pillar scored just 39 points, the lowest among all measured dimensions. That same pillar is also the least mature across the entire region, indicating that clarity in strategic goals has not yet translated into daily operational integration.

Governance divides returns from waste

The study, conducted by ThoughtLab and commissioned by ServiceNow, identifies the decisive factor as governance maturity rather than investment scale. Organizations with the highest return on AI investment, averaging 161% currently and projected at 194% within two years, are also those with the highest maturity in governance, data management, and risk. These enterprises report five times higher productivity, 2.6 times greater success in scaling AI, and 2.5 times stronger capacity to manage risk. Governance does not impede innovation, but serves as the foundation enabling confident scaling and turning investments into sustainable competitive advantage.

Degraded data, fragmented systems, absent governance

Data remains the primary hurdle locally and regionally: 73% of executives across the EMEA region view poor data accuracy, accessibility, and governance as their biggest barrier, compared to 67% in the Kingdom. In governance and testing, only 19% of organizations across the region have implemented AI testing, auditing, and risk management processes, dropping to just 18% in Saudi Arabia. As for legacy systems, only 15% of regional organizations have replaced their systems with integrated platforms, falling to 13% in the Kingdom, leaving AI applications operating in fragmented and siloed environments.

Agentic AI: Broad adoption, shallow deployment

While 48% of Saudi enterprises use agentic AI compared to 57% regionally, only 10% in the Kingdom deploy it to establish fully autonomous workflows, versus 9% across the region. AI largely remains an assistant to employees and has not yet reached the stage of independently redesigning enterprise workflows.

2027 horizon: Nearly a fifth of IT budgets

AI spending is projected to account for 19.4% of total IT budgets in the Kingdom by 2027, and 20.1% across the region. This rapid growth comes amid regulatory and competitive pressures driving organizations to modernize their digital infrastructure, while 67% of Saudi enterprises see data accuracy and management challenges as the main obstacle to realizing returns.

Regional perspective

The exceptional growth in Saudi AI spending aligns with Vision 2030 targets and the ambitions of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), the kingdom's national data and AI regulator, for an integrated digital infrastructure. Yet the numbers warn that accelerating financial commitments without a parallel maturity in governance, data, and systems risks turning investments into stagnant assets without business value. The obstacle lies not in the scale of the bet, but in the operational plumbing required to make it productive.