RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s AI-native startups are outperforming global and regional peers in strategic execution and commercial growth, according to a report released by Amazon Web Services on Tuesday, highlighting the Kingdom’s push to become a global technology hub under Vision 2030.
The report, titled “Engines of Growth,” surveyed 3,413 startup founders and senior leaders across 20 countries, examining the rise of AI-native companies — businesses less than five years old that have been built around advanced artificial intelligence from the outset.
The findings show that AI-native firms are scaling faster and reaching key business milestones with significantly fewer employees and in less time than traditional companies.
According to the Saudi Arabia data sheet accompanying the report, 72 percent of Saudi AI-native startups have a formal AI strategy in place, exceeding the global AI-native average of 68 percent and significantly outperforming traditional businesses.
Saudi AI-native startups also reported average annual revenue growth of 150 percent, close to the global AI-native average of 156 percent and well above the 62 percent recorded by Saudi startups overall.
The report found that Saudi AI-native companies are almost five times more likely than traditional Saudi startups to generate more than $1 million in annual revenue.
Almost half (48 percent) generate more than $400,000 in revenue per employee, compared with 28 percent of Saudi startups overall. Cloud adoption is also widespread, with 98 percent integrating cloud services into their operations, versus 75 percent of traditional startups.
In addition, 63 percent have developed proprietary AI capabilities, including custom AI models, compared with 35 percent of Saudi startups overall, while 45 percent are using AI extensively in research and development.
“The difference is not whether startups use AI, but how they use it,” Amr Al-Masri, country leader for Saudi Arabia at AWS, told Arab News.
Most companies add AI to existing processes. AI-native companies begin with what AI can do and build their business around those capabilities.
He said AI-native startups are emerging as a key link between frontier AI innovation and enterprise transformation because they are embedding AI directly into workflows across industries.
Al-Masri attributed the sector’s rapid growth to Saudi Arabia’s investment in digital infrastructure, AI development and startup support under Vision 2030.
The Kingdom is creating the right environment through a combination of infrastructure, investment and regulation, he added, highlighting efforts to develop an AI regulatory framework and expand support for startup accelerators.
