My Morning Routine: Abdulaziz Almuhaydib, co-founder and COO of Velents

Three years ago, Velents was an applicant tracking system. Today, it’s the firstArab company in Anthropic’s Claude Partner Network, building agentic AI for government and enterprise clients across Saudi Arabia and Egypt — part of the region’s push to build AI infrastructure it actually controls.

My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. This week, we sat down with Abdulaziz Almuhaydib (LinkedIn), Velents’ co-founder, to discuss the company’s AI ambitions, the future of sovereign technology, and what it takes to build a regional AI player. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

E: What pulled you toward AI, tech, and Velents?

Abulaziz Almuhaydib: My background isn’t traditionally in tech — I came up through operations management and trading within the mining industry. I started angel investing in multiple startups later because I believed the best MBA is actually investing in startups instead of going to school and paying tuition. You get to know how founders build startups and what the tricks are — you’re paying your money to actually understand how a startup works.

Velents was the third startup I invested in, out of a portfolio that eventually grew to about 14 companies. I left my job after six months of starting my investment and joined Velents as a co-founder because I was fully convinced that AI is the future.

E: What’s Velents’ origin story, and where does the company sit today?

AA: Since the beginning of 2023, we have adapted to the market by remaining agile and flexible. We initially started as a sovereign AI company focused on applicant tracking systems, video interviewing, and AI recruiting, and then evolved into an agentic AI company. Now, through our agentic approach, we look at where workflow operations actually slow down inside an organization and embed an AI agent directly into that workflow to make operations measurable and more efficient. The target segment for us includes governmental, semi-governmental, and large enterprise clients.

Velents stands on top of three main technologies: the first being document understanding, the second is a conversational AI that understands spoken and written Arabic and executes actions in the background, and the third is media analysis, where we analyze videos for interviews or conduct sentiment analysis for call centers.

Our product stack includes Agent.sa, the first fully integrated Arabic-speaking AI employee, and Safha, our document understanding and analysis platform built with Elm. We also run an AI recruitment agent and a quality assurance agent which provides customer support services.

E: What’s the current development and expansion strategy for Velents?

AA: Our near-future target is to build sovereign AI agents that users can host locally on their laptops. For example, an employee in a finance department could have a small language model (SLM) running locally with multiple agents assisting them through their specific processes in an isolated space.

We realized over the past year that partnership-led growth is essential. AI is not a standalone product — it’s a top-up layer to an ecosystem that already exists in enterprises. This is why we formed strategic partnerships with companies like Claude, Red Hat, and IBM.

E: Speaking of sovereign AI, why is it becoming so critical for GCC governments and firms?

AA: At the end of the day, you have to protect your data. Sovereign AI is the most critical global trend right now — not just in Saudi Arabia — because organizations cannot risk sharing private data due to cybersecurity restrictions. You need a sovereign AI that understands your specific data, segment, nation, citizens, and internal processes to compete globally.

E: Looking ahead, what are the challenges to scaling across the region?

AA: The biggest challenge is AI awareness. There is a mandate from leadership to utilize AI, but the practical use cases are often misunderstood, and there is often a disconnect between higher-level executives who want to embed AI immediately and the operational teams who have to use it. AI utilization must start with an existing pain point, not just as a complementary “buzzword.” Many projects fail because companies don’t start with the root cause of the problem. At Velents, we provide tools, but if they aren’t utilized correctly, the ROI is zero. We focus heavily on the specific use case first, and then deploy our suite of agents to target the issue directly.

E: Walk us through your day, start to finish.

AA: I’m not naturally a morning person, but transitioning from an employee to a co-founder pushed me to become one. I wake up around 8am and aim to be in the office by 9am. One of my best investments was an xBloom coffee machine, because I can use the app to start filtering my coffee before I even arrive.

Once at the office, I check in with the employees to see if anyone needs help or faces any dependencies from my side. After that, I look at my calendar to prepare for any client meetings. My evenings after that are usually spent attending networking events and dinners with business and marketing leaders to engage with them on a personal level.

Abulaziz’s recommendations

What he’s listening to: I spend my commute listening to the All-In Podcast to stay updated on tech trends and market developments during the heavy morning and evening traffic in Riyadh.

A piece of advice that stuck: Don't compare yourself to others. If you do, you will constantly chase an ideal that doesn’t fit your reality, because everyone’s life journey is completely different. We live with the momentum of a high-speed track, so two years is actually a long time. Comparing yourself to who you were two years ago takes all the noise out of your mind. The only honest scoreboard is whether you have moved or not.