Nine in 10 organizations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia say they are well-positioned competitively and have a solid strategy for the rapid pace of change in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI). A recent Dell Technologies Innovation Catalyst Research reveals that 95 percent of UAE organizations and 100 percent of those in Saudi Arabia believe that GenAI and AI will significantly transform industries in the future.
However, around 50 percent of organizations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are uncertain what their industry will look like in the next three to five years. Moreover, nearly 80 percent of both countries are struggling to keep pace with the transformation. Among the most notable challenges that companies face in driving innovation are the lack of the right talent, data privacy and cybersecurity concerns, and a lack of budget.
Gen AI’s transformative potential
Organizations in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia cited GenAI’s transformative or significant potential to deliver value in improving IT security posture, productivity gains and customer experiences. However, they are also aware of the challenges they need to overcome to unlock this potential. Around 75 percent of them fear that GenAI will introduce new security and privacy issues. Meanwhile, over 85 percent agreed that their data and IP is too valuable to be available in a GenAI tool where a third party may have access to it.
Despite the challenges, UAE and Saudi Arabia organizations are working through AI and GenAI practicalities as they transition from ideation to implementation, with more than half saying they have begun implementing GenAI.
“Organizations seeking to stand out in today’s disruptive market must pivot from innovation being a side project to it being deeply embedded into their corporate identity. By combining GenAI and other transformative innovations, businesses can augment their capabilities and raise their productivity levels to new heights,” stated Mohammed Amin, Sr. Vice President, CEEMETA, Dell Technologies.
Read: Sheikh Hamdan approves latest phase of Dubai Future Solutions program
Cybersecurity remains major challenge
Cybersecurity continues to be a major area of concern for organizations in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia when adopting AI and Gen AI innovation. Over 90 percent of organizations in both countries say they have faced a security attack in the past 12 months. Therefore, over 90 percent of them are pursuing a zero-trust deployment strategy and over 85 percent say they have an incident response plan in place to recover from a cyberattack or data leakage.
The research also reveals that modern data infrastructure plays a critical role as technologies like GenAI develop and data volumes increase. Therefore, the top area of improvement for businesses to accelerate innovation is investing in modern, scalable infrastructure. Most IT decision makers (87 percent in the UAE, and 75 percent in Saudi Arabia) say they prefer an on-prem or hybrid model to address the challenges they expect with implementing GenAI.
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