Eighty six per cent of Middle Eastern companies say they already have a reinvention strategy in place and 82 per cent have accelerated their efforts over the past year, but only 9 per cent are progressing at scale, according to a new Accenture report.
The study, Building tomorrow’s economies: How generative AI will reinvent business in the Middle East, examines how organisations across the region are responding to the impact of generative AI and the broader shift toward digital competitiveness.
Accenture found that 76 per cent of business leaders believe generative AI could raise output per worker by more than 10 per cent within three years.
In Saudi Arabia, 38 per cent of working hours are considered in scope for automation or augmentation.
The report classifies companies into three groups: “Reinventors”, representing 9 per cent of organisations with a comprehensive strategy; “Transformers”, 77 per cent that have begun their reinvention journey, slightly below the global average of 81 per cent; and “Optimisers”, 14 per cent that have yet to start, above the global average of 10 per cent.
Among other findings, 81 per cent of Middle East executives expect to overhaul IT within three years, while 48 per cent say technical debt is hurting competitiveness and 44 per cent say it is hindering reinvention.
More than half, 52 per cent, cite sustainability as a key driver.
The report notes that hyperscalers such as Google, Microsoft and AWS have signed major agreements in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, accelerating regional adoption of AI infrastructure.
It highlights several developments this year, including HUMAIN, a Public Investment Fund-backed company that will manage Saudi Arabia’s AI services, data centres, cloud capabilities and Arabic LLM, and the UAE’s plan for a joint US-UAE AI campus spanning more than 10 miles in Abu Dhabi, described as the world’s largest effort of its kind.
Highlights of the Accenture report
Accenture reported a clear divide in generative AI expectations: 66 per cent of Reinventors see the technology as a source of revenue growth, compared with 34 per cent prioritising cost efficiencies.
Transformers are evenly split, while 76 per cent of Optimisers view generative AI mainly as a cost-cutting tool.
Reinventors, the report says, have achieved a 15 percentage-point premium in revenue growth and a six-point premium in profit growth since 2019. They are twice as likely as Transformers to track returns on generative AI investments and adjust priorities and 1.2 times more likely to consider significant business-model changes.
The report outlines five imperatives for reinvention with generative AI: leading with value, securing an AI-enabled digital core, reinventing talent and work models, closing the gap on responsible AI and pursuing continuous reinvention.
“The Middle East isn’t short on ambition or AI infrastructure, but too few organisations, less than 9 per cent in fact, are turning that into enterprise-wide reinvention,” said Ramez T Shehadi, Accenture’s Middle East and Africa strategy and consulting lead and global public sector strategy lead. “The real divide now isn’t between nations, it’s between institutions that scale fast and those that simply think about it.”