How people in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt use AI at work

A handful of reports out this week are giving us a better picture of how businesses across MENA+ are using AI in offices, shops, and on factory floors. Editing documents leads work-related ChatGPT use in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, while visual design is the number one “use case” (as the software nerds refer to it) in Egypt.

In the UAE, editing accounts for almost one in four work-related messages, according to country data from 3Q published this week by OpenAI. Our analysis of the figures puts it at 24.1%, followed by visual design (6.2%), and interpreting language, cultural, or religious information (5.8%).

Saudi Arabia follows the same order. Editing leads at 15.3%, ahead of graphic design (8.6%), and interpretation (7.5%).

Egypt’s biggest use case is visual design, at 10.6%. Editing comes a close second at 10.2%, followed by developing marketing or promotional materials (7.6%).

The US and UK look more like the Gulf. Editing ranks first in both, at 17.1% and 18.8%, respectively. Visual design comes second — 7.6% in the US and 6.6% in the UK — followed by marketing materials at 5.0% in each. (The OpenAI data excludes messages sent to Codex, its developer-forward platform.)

MEANWHILE- Small businesses in the UAE are easing gently into the water. Emirati expense-management platform Pemo’s first SME Spend Index found that 29% of its active business customers paid for AI in the third quarter of this year. Among companies that were using it last year, AI spending rose 328% year on year and the share of companies paying for it climbed to 35% from 21%.

Most small businesses are not big spenders. The median business in the data paying for AI is coughing up AED 268 a month.

Tech and marketing companies are more AI-forward: Half of technology companies in Pemo’s sample paid for it, compared with 46% of marketing agencies and 17% of construction businesses. (Pemo’s data doesn’t include use of free tools, personal subscriptions, or AI bundled into Microsoft or Google workplace suites.)

AND- People working in the GCC are happy to use AI, but they’re less certain they want a robot deciding whether or not they get a new job. The latest edition of the EXE and Ipsos GCC People Pulse found 83% of respondents in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar used employer-provided AI at least occasionally. More than half — 54% — use it daily or several times a week.

We’re actually surprised the numbers are this high: The enthusiasm of the 700 people surveyed cools when it comes to putting their careers in the hands of an AI agent. Some 59% would take part in an AI screening interview, while just 44% were comfortable with AI making the final decision on their job application.