RIYADH: As Saudi Arabia drives its economic expansion, national workforce platforms are putting smart digital tools directly into daily business operations to speed up hiring, stop fraud, and help local companies grow. Speaking on the sidelines of the LEAP 2026 tech conference in Riyadh, Dr. Saud Almandil, the chief information and digitalization officer at Takamol, explained how the organization’s digital systems are making hiring simpler, verifying worker skills, and supporting local employment goals across the Kingdom. Faster hiring and built-in legal checks Putting automated checks straight into everyday business tasks has cut through bureaucratic delay, making it much easier for companies to expand while staying fully compliant with Saudi labor law. “We’re embedding AI inside labor market transactions rather than running it as reporting on the side,” Almandil said. “Large language models and advanced analytics review over 300,000 job-role requests a month in real time, checking each against the establishment’s licensed activity.” The platform also acts as a real-time assistant for employment paperwork, removing costly legal hold-ups for business owners. “Our contract assistant covers more than 750,000 contracts monthly, each potentially carrying up to 25 clauses added by the employer, flagging conflicts with regulation and explaining why,” Almandil noted. “Interpretation that once required a subject matter expert now happens as the employer types. That lowers the cost of operating compliantly for the private sector.” Verifying real skills and fair job growth Welcoming international experts while opening doors for Saudi talent relies on one clear goal: making sure skills and employment data are genuine. “Verification governs capability; Saudization governs composition,” Almandil explained. “What links them is authenticity — and that’s where the AI sits.” To guarantee that overseas workers hold true qualifications before moving to the Kingdom, Takamol uses automated testing and skill assessments around the globe. “Upstream, we test skills before workers arrive: over 200 examination centers across more than 160 countries,” Almandil said. “Computer vision and neural networks complete identity verification in seconds rather than minutes, and intelligent video analytics let us oversee more than 100,000 assessment sessions a month, against roughly 150 per supervisor before.” At home, automated monitoring helps ensure that local hiring numbers reflect real jobs rather than paper trickery. “Domestically, we apply analytics to detect fictitious localization — Saudis registered on payroll who don’t actually work at the establishment — which is the mechanism firms use to inflate their localization rate and unlock more visas,” Almandil said. “Same principle on both sides: verifying authenticity, not counting heads.” Connecting young Saudis to new careers Getting young Saudi professionals and first-time jobseekers into highly skilled roles means removing tedious application barriers while offering practical everyday support. “Two things have to work: the matching, and the barrier to participation,” Almandil emphasized. “On matching, we deploy intelligent document understanding that extracts education, experience and skills straight from a CV, and recommendation models that learn from a jobseeker’s profile and behavior,” he explained. “Within three months, 30 percent of applicants no longer had to re-enter details already in their resume, and engagement with vacancies rose 2.7 times.” To complement smart matching, Takamol also builds community support networks so families can take full advantage of new work opportunities. “On participation, matching doesn’t help if someone can’t take the job,” Almandil noted. “Qurrah operates on-site workplace childcare across more than 16 branches, and Mowaamah certifies employers on workplace inclusion.”