I met Raja Al-Mazrouei in the glittering new FinTech Hive at the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), all open-plan workspaces, break-out areas and coffee machines.
There is even a sound-proofed pod suspended from the ceiling that looks like a football cut in half, where you can make mobile calls without being disturbed by the background noise from the young entrepreneurs who will be working there.
I remarked to her that it was all “pretty hip,” and she replied, “Yes, I suppose you could call it hip.”
Since May this year, Al-Mazrouei has been in charge of the DIFC’s financial technology (fintech) initiative, which the center sees as a crucial part of its ambitious plan to triple in size by 2024, helping maintain Dubai’s lead as the premier financial marketplace in the region.
Last week, it officially opened the FinTech Hive at DIFC, and marked that by announcing the names of 11 successful applicants to its “accelerator” program, designed to attract fast-growing fintech companies to Dubai. “It’s been very busy,” Al-Mazrouei said.
Fintech is as hip as it gets in the sometimes dull world of financial services. Essentially, it is the application of new technology to the finance industry, ranging from mobile-based personal banking services through to huge global systems like the blockchain digital accounting system and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
Fintech has attracted an army of smart young entrepreneurs, all keen to win a slice of the estimated $50 billion that has been invested in fintech in recent years, according to a recent analysis by consultants Accenture. The DIFC’s Hive is the latest bid to create a fintech hub in the Arabian Gulf region, to rival more established centers like New York, London and Singapore.
“We want to create an ecosystem of partners to encourage ‘growth stage’ fintech firms to use DIFC as their hub,” Al-Mazrouei said.
The issue, however, is that virtually every other financial center in the Middle East has the same ambition. While the region came pretty late to fintech, compared to the big global financial markets, there has been a clamor to catch up.
In early 2016, Abu Dhabi declared its ambition to be the fintech capital of the Gulf, and has since set up and is operating its own fintech hub in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, the UAE’s new financial free zone.
Bahrain has also established a fintech hub, while Saudi Arabia has declared fintech to be an integral part of the Vision 2030 strategy to transform the economy, and has the financial firepower to back up that ambition. There is speculation in the Kingdom of a big investment in fintech by one of its funds.
Even Cairo has highlighted fintech as a growth area, and set up two units to encourage financial entrepreneurship in the sector.
So is the fintech market in the region sufficiently big to satisfy all those aspiring new entrants? “I think the market is there. Dubai has some other advantages, apart from the fact DIFC is the leading financial hub in the region. The fintech initiative coincides with the government’s innovation program, and with the whole ‘smart city’ strategy. It makes a compelling case for Dubai,” said Al-Mazrouei.
In theory, the Gulf should be a magnet for fintech investment. The Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region — of which it is the hub — has a population of 3 billion, a big youth demographic, and high rates of cellphone usage. Underbanked in the traditional sense, the theory is that young people in the region will miss out altogether on traditional branch banking, and go straight to mobile services.
These factors would seem to make it a natural fintech hub, but investment has so far lagged global levels. Only 1 percent of the $50 billion estimated by Accenture has gone into the Middle East.
The FinTech Hive at DIFC is designed to help bridge that gap. Its “accelerator” program, which advanced significantly last week with the unveiling of the 11 successful participants, is a crucial part of that strategy.
The 11 “winners” are what Al-Mazrouei calls “growth stage” firms. “They are already doing business but they might need some fine-tuning, for example to upgrade their technologies to take into account the special needs of the MEASA region — products that address the access for younger populations of the Middle East, Africa and Asia who are the most likely potential customers of fintech products for personal finance. The firms all have either a financial history, or they have raised investment already. Some of them have funds and a working product,” she explained.
The accelerator program involves a three-stage “curriculum” over the coming 12 weeks. In the first phase, the 11 firms will meet with executives from the accelerator’s financial partners — 10 prominent banks — to identify industry challenges and possible solutions to address them.
In the second phase, they will receive direct “mentoring” from the financial institutions and from the DIFC, on technology, legal and regulatory affairs, and Islamic finance.
The third phase will involve the companies preparing to pitch ideas at an “investor day” in mid-November, when they will present their products to a group of private investors, bankers and government officials. The countdown to investor day has already begin in the DIFC, with posters showing the number of days remaining until the 11 aspirants learn their fate.
Then, assuming they make the cut, there are several possible outcomes, Al-Mazrouei explained. “They will be acquired by one of the banks; they will attract more funding to invest more in their development; or they will have contracts to provide services to financial firms,” she said.
Any of those would seem to be attractive propositions for young fintech-savvy entrepreneurs. Of the 11 chosen for the accelerator, two are from the UAE, three are from the US, and there is one each from the UK, Sweden, Jordan, India, Singapore and Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijan team, which has developed a fintech product for Islamic finance, was especially enthusiastic and insisted on attending all the interviews in person, rather than via Skype, Al-Mazrouei said.
There is interest from Saudi entrepreneurs too, which may show through in the next accelerator round. “Some young Saudis recognized me in the DIFC and began explaining about their payments system. It’s very ambitious and I’m sure it has a future,” Al-Mazrouei said.
She hopes the changes going on in Saudi Arabia under the Vision 2030 strategy for economic diversification will being benefits for the whole region. “I think all the signs are pointed in the right direction and are aligned with the overall economic strategy. The dynamics of the region are changing but Saudi Arabia is in tune with those plans. The recent appointments of women to senior positions in the financial industry was a very good indicator of the way things are going,” she said.
Another reason Al-Mazrouei is confident there is a market for fintech in the region despite the growing number of centers focusing on it is the level of response DIFC got to its accelerator program. “It was overwhelming. We thought we’d get between 70 and 80 applicants, not 111 as we (did get),” she said.
On the tricky question of whether she and the DIFC would cooperate with other centers, rather than competing for business as seems to be the case now, Al-Mazrouei responds: “I am always willing to cooperate. But all the other centers are each doing it slightly differently. I think the accelerator program is unique in that we have offered them the opportunity to partner with 10 big financial institutions in the region.”
DIFC’s fintech initiative has the potential to add significantly to its expansion plans. Under the center’s 10-year strategy announced in 2014, it aims to triple the number of regulated financial firms in a decade, with a target set of 1,000 members. At the last estimate in June, that sat at 463 firms regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).
Between now and 2024, one could expect to see around 70 new fintech DIFC member firms via the accelerator scheme, assuming the target of 10 per year is met. “Fintech fits in well with the DIFC’s 10-year strategy. The aim is to triple the size of the DIFC by 2024 — in physical space, member firms and assets under management. The new fintech entrants will add to all three of those categories,” Al-Mazrouei said.
Of course, there is nothing to stop fintech firms applying to become immediate full members of the DIFC; they could also apply for a special innovation testing license, which gives them one-year membership of the DIFC on competitive terms, under regulation of the DFSA. If after one year they and the DIFC agree it is beneficial, they can move to full DIFC membership, Al-Mazrouei said.
Al-Mazrouei is a prime example of the new generation of Emirati women who are forging an executive path in the higher echelons of UAE business life. Her background seems to make her perfectly suited for the Hive job.
After education in the UAE and a degree in business information technology, she graduated from the Harvard Business School’s advanced management program in the US, and then came back to work in Dubai in IT-related posts for National Bonds, and for Dubai Holding, the government-owned conglomerate. At the DIFC, she spent time as the head of marketing and communications at the center, in addition to IT roles.
“I have experience in IT and in marketing, so it comes together well in this new role. I’m an engineer by background, so I understand technology. The combination works really well in the fintech space. Plus I have experience of international marketing and how it supports development,” Al-Mazrouei said.
Of the current elite global fintech hubs — New York, London and Singapore — Al-Mazrouei believes the UK capital is the one Dubai must seek to emulate. “I think we learned most from London, which I see as the center of global fintech. It’s the biggest and most innovative,” she said.
Dubai financial center’s Hive creates buzz in regional fintech market
Dubai financial center’s Hive creates buzz in regional fintech market
Saudi Arabia’s AI imperative: seizing the agentic enterprise to fulfill Vision 2030 goals
- Workers who use AI daily are 64% more productive and 81% more satisfied with their jobs
RIYADH: As Saudi Arabia advances its ambitious Vision 2030, a transformative shift in the global workplace underscores a critical opportunity for the Kingdom’s organizations.
Slack’s latest Workforce Index survey revealed an unprecedented surge in the adoption and impact of artificial intelligence, presenting a clear pathway for Saudi businesses to lead in the era of digital labor, drive economic diversification, and create high-value roles for the future workforce.
“Saudi Arabia has all the ingredients to lead this shift: a young population, a government willing to modernize at extraordinary speed and industries preparing for global competition,” Mohammad Al-Khotani, the senior vice president and general manager of Salesforce Middle East told Arab News.
From adoption to advantage
The evidence that AI is a decisive competitive advantage is now overwhelming. Slack’s research, which surveyed 5,000 global desk workers, found that daily AI usage has soared by 233 percent in just six months.
Workers who use AI daily are 64 percent more productive and 81 percent more satisfied with their jobs than their non-AI-using colleagues. This trend is even more pronounced in specific markets; in the UK, daily AI users report an 82 percent increase in productivity and a 106 percent boost in job satisfaction.
According to the report, this surge is fundamentally reshaping work. The data confirms that trust grows with use: workers who use AI agents daily are twice as likely to trust them in areas like data protection and accuracy.
Furthermore, AI is enabling workers to expand their capabilities strategically. Some 96 percent of AI users have leveraged the technology to perform tasks they previously lacked the skills to do.
Workers are now 154 percent more likely to use AI agents to perform tasks better and more creatively, not merely to automate them. The top productivity boosts come from eliminating extensive research, assisting with communication, and overcoming creative blocks.
Given this, Al-Khotani emphasized the macroeconomic imperative for Saudi organizations to lead, not follow.
“Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where the public sector has already set a global benchmark for digital service delivery. This creates a macroeconomic condition in which private-sector organizations must now match the pace set by the state,” he said.
He further noted that “the scale of Saudi Arabia’s transformation, megaprojects, tourism growth, manufacturing build-out and new digital sectors, requires the productivity lift that only digital labor and AI agents can provide. Organizations that adopt early will move faster, earn citizen trust and gain market share.”
This perspective is echoed by Mohamad El-Charif, founder of the Middle East’s first sovereign regulatory compliance platform, Qadi.
“When we talk about digital labor in Saudi Arabia, we have to acknowledge that legal and regulatory AI is not optional. If we wait and come in as fast followers, we’ll end up running our core legal and regulatory workloads elsewhere, governed, and updated elsewhere,” he explained to Arab News.
He argued that early adoption creates a lasting advantage: “Moving early with governed, sovereign agents, lets Saudi organizations encode their own local laws, internal policies, escalation paths and audit trails into the infrastructure.”
He added: “Under Vision 2030, leading Saudi banks, insurers, telcos, and energy companies are not just serving the domestic market; they’re becoming global players. If they build their regulatory backbone early and on their own terms, they don’t just stay in bounds at home, but they also carry that infrastructure with them as they expand.”
From automation to the agentic enterprise
This ground-level adoption aligns with a strategic corporate pivot identified in the 2025 MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report, produced in collaboration with Deloitte.
The report highlighted that generative AI has reshaped human-AI interaction, and the next frontier is the rise of the “agentic enterprise.” This model involves autonomous AI agents that can operate with unprecedented independence, responding to queries, managing sophisticated tasks, and optimizing workflows without continuous human intervention.
The report found that 93 percent of IT leaders intend to introduce such autonomous agents within two years, with 40 percent having already done so and another 41 percent planning deployment within the next year.
This shift is accelerating rapidly; the average number of AI models in use has already doubled from 2024 projections, and IT leaders predict a further 78 percent increase over the next three years.
Salesforce Middle East’s Al-Khotani elaborated on this strategic potential, stating: “AI agents offer a multiplier effect across sectors that Vision 2030 prioritizes. This same efficiency can shift the economics of different industries.”
He added: “Legacy sectors can automate routine compliance, scheduling, documentation, onboarding and case resolution. Public services can move from reactive to proactive, anticipating citizen needs and completing tasks autonomously.”
Qadi’s El-Charif described this as turning “compliance from a blockage into an API,” accelerating Vision 2030’s ambitions.
“For a thriving economy, the biggest gift you can give businesses is predictable, low-friction compliance,” he said, adding: “When you encode local laws, regulations and internal policies into agents, those checks move inside the workflow. Approvals can happen in days, not months, without lowering standards.”
However, this potential is gated by integration. Some 95 percent of IT leaders cite integration challenges as the primary hurdle to effective AI implementation.
Organizations use an average of 897 applications, with 46 percent using over 1,000, yet integration levels have stagnated.
Opportunity for the Kingdom
For Saudi organizations, moving early to adopt and integrate AI is no longer optional, but a strategic necessity to lead in digital labor and deliver on Vision 2030’s goals of a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation.
First, deploying AI in ways that deliver positive outcomes for both business and employees is key. The Slack Index showed that AI enhances human connection, not replaces it.
Daily AI users are 246 percent more likely to feel more connected to colleagues and report a 62 percent higher sense of belonging. This counters fears of displacement, showing AI can augment teamwork and culture.
Al-Khotani stressed the principles for positive deployment, noting: “AI must be introduced as augmentation, not substitution. When people understand that agents are handling low-value tasks, while humans focus on creativity, judgment and customer relationships, acceptance is extremely high.”
He added that Salesforce data shows 84 percent of AI users say the technology makes them enjoy their job more, largely because it reduces repetitive work.
El-Charif advocated for a practical Outcome-Workflow-Governance framework to achieve this symbiosis, saying: “We design agents to take over that ‘read, retrieve, reconcile’ loop.
“This doesn’t replace humans, but it elevates them out of the infrastructural gridlock.”
He added: “That, for me, brings a real opportunity of using agentic AI to remove the glue work that exhausts people, and free up talent to focus on strategy, relationships and judgment, which is exactly what Vision 2030 is asking our institutions to excel at.”
Agentic AI can directly accelerate Vision 2030 ambitions. As noted by Goldman Sachs Research, generative AI can streamline business workflows, automate routine tasks and give rise to a new generation of business applications.
For Saudi Arabia, this means modernizing legacy sectors, improving efficiency in health care and financial services, and supercharging nascent industries.
The MuleSoft report confirmed that APIs and API-related implementations now account for 40 percent of company revenue on average, up from 25 percent in 2018, demonstrating the tangible economic value of a connected, AI-ready infrastructure.
El-Charif also highlighted the societal dimension, stating: “For a vibrant society, this technology drives transparency and trust. When rules are encoded into agents, their application becomes consistent and audit-ready. This builds confidence in the market and investors know that compliance isn’t subjective, but structural.”
Finally, this transition will create high-value roles for humans. The integration challenge itself is a source of future jobs. The MuleSoft report found that developers spend an estimated 39 percent of their time building custom integrations, and IT staffing budgets are expected to rise by 61.5 percent year-over-year to meet AI demand.
Al-Khotani foresees specific new roles emerging from the AI integration challenge, saying: “Salesforce’s research shows that organizations adopting AI expect their data and integration teams to grow nearly 50 percent over the next three years.”
He went on explaining that this opens pathways for new roles such as AI integration architects, agent workflow designers, and responsible AI officers and digital trust specialists.
El-Charif identified the emergence of roles such as “Legal Engineer,” — someone who understands both the regulation and how to encode it into logic.
Furthermore, as AI handles routine tasks, workers are freed for more strategic, creative, and innovative work, precisely the skills needed for a knowledge-based economy.
Al-Khotani envisioned this shift elevating Saudi Arabia’s broader economic structure: “As agents take on routine and administrative tasks, Saudi Arabia’s workforce will shift toward higher-value roles that emphasize creativity, human judgment, and strategic decision-making.”
He added that this shift increases productivity per capita, a core Vision 2030 outcome, because the workforce is no longer limited by the volume of manual work it can process. “The macroeconomic structure becomes more innovation-driven and less labor-intensive.”
Global AI adoption is accelerating, worker productivity and satisfaction are skyrocketing with its use, and the next wave of enterprise value lies in agentic AI.
For Saudi Arabia, the mandate is to build the robust, integrated digital foundations today that will allow its organizations and workforce to not just participate in this future, but to lead it, turning the promise of Vision 2030 into an intelligent, automated, and human-centric reality.
As Al-Khotani concluded: “The future economy will not reward automation alone, it will reward nations that use AI to elevate human potential. Saudi Arabia is positioned to be one of them.”
