Salesforce Sees Saudi Arabia as Leader in AI Adoption

Salesforce's Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Middle East, Mohammed AlKhotani, spoke at LEAP in Riyadh about the company's investment in Saudi Arabia. The $500 million investment announced last year has already seen significant results, with over 500 students graduating from a partnership between Salesforce and Princess Noura University into AI-ready roles. This program demonstrates the growing maturity of AI adoption in the country.

According to AlKhotani, only 15 percent of people surveyed in Saudi Arabia resist using AI at work, which is lower than any other country studied by Salesforce. Additionally, 79 percent of the government sector is willing to deploy generative AI in critical processes. However, a persistent bottleneck remains in enterprise integration, with 29 percent citing this as an issue.

AlKhotani also confirmed that Salesforce will be deploying on top of AWS's newly announced Saudi data center by year-end, indicating continued investment and expansion in the region.