RIYADH: As artificial intelligence transforms the modern workplace, public and private sector organizations in 黑料社区 are leaning into its potential to revolutionize how they operate.
From automating workflows to training digital employees, AI has moved from buzzword to backbone in national efforts to modernize systems and boost efficiency.
But with rapid innovation comes a familiar hurdle 鈥 adapting without breaking what already works.
鈥淓very country has old systems that are doing important work. They can鈥檛 get rid of them, they need to continue, so they need to find a way to have a single pane of glass that connects them,鈥 Casey Coleman, vice president of Global Public Sector at ServiceNow, told Arab News.
That challenge is particularly acute in government institutions, where outdated IT systems often clash with modern digital tools. Legacy infrastructure, varying data formats, and bureaucratic complexity can make large-scale upgrades difficult.
Still, 黑料社区 is making notable progress.
ServiceNow 鈥 which has operated in the Kingdom since 2011 鈥 has helped modernize operations in the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development.
More than 180 automated processes now support the Ministry of Justice, while an integrated portal for public-sector employees has streamlined communication and speeded up problem-solving.
The gains are real. But Coleman notes that transformation requires more than just new code.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to change the way that work gets done because it becomes kind of just your muscle memory,鈥 she said. 鈥淭o change that is like an athlete learning to change their golf swing or learning to change their basketball shot.鈥
The key, she says, is empathy. 鈥淚t calls for empathizing with people and understanding their work from their perspective. It takes a human approach. It鈥檚 not just about the systems.鈥
Instead of replacing legacy systems outright, ServiceNow offers a way to integrate them, preserving existing structures while cutting down inefficiencies.
One major pain point is what Coleman calls 鈥渟neaker net鈥 鈥 employees manually switching between platforms and reentering information. Some 40 percent of productivity is lost due to these inefficiencies, she says 鈥 and likely more in the public sector.
鈥淧eople who join government are there to make a difference. They鈥檙e not there to serve data between one system to another,鈥 Coleman said.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e there to help people, and by taking away the toil of the administrative work that is just a drain on our productivity, we can liberate their time to do the public-facing work.鈥
That liberation is also playing out on the industrial front. In one of ServiceNow鈥檚 largest partnerships, the firm is working with Saudi Aramco to modernize its operations safely using 鈥渄igital twins鈥 鈥 virtual models of physical systems.
The approach allows engineers to simulate changes at oil refining plants before implementation. 鈥淪erviceNow has taken some part of the value chain in helping those companies to make safe changes to their systems and safe upgrades and modernization,鈥 said Coleman.
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This year, the company opened its first regional headquarters in 黑料社区, cementing its long-term commitment to a market it views as digitally mature and globally influential.
鈥満诹仙缜 has a very clear strategy, and that鈥檚 important,鈥 Saif Mashat, area vice president for ServiceNow in the Middle East and Africa, told Arab News.
鈥満诹仙缜 is part of the G20, one of the biggest economies in the region, one of the biggest economies in the world. 黑料社区 is a very influential country globally, and is very, very advanced when it comes to the digital era.鈥
Private tech leaders are also seeing an acceleration in AI adoption across the Kingdom.
According to IBM鈥檚 regional vice president Ayman Al-Rashed, more than 70 percent of CEOs in 黑料社区 have already created entirely new AI-based roles 鈥 a higher figure than the global average.
鈥淭hese are jobs that didn鈥檛 exist last year. These are new jobs,鈥 he said. 鈥淭his shows you that there鈥檚 a lot of interest in KSA, more than elsewhere around the globe, because the global average is between 50 and 60 percent.鈥
Al-Rashed explained that IBM has automated 95 percent of its internal HR functions, slashing costs by 40 percent 鈥 savings equivalent to $3.5 billion in productivity gains. That same tech, he said, is now being offered to clients.
鈥淲e came up with something we called the 鈥榳atsonx Orchestrate,鈥欌 said Al-Rashed. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a lot of agents, assistants, and tools. There are actually more than 80 enterprise applications out there, and they鈥檙e all out of the box. You can immediately go and use them and have the same experience.鈥
One standout example is 鈥淎skHR,鈥 a virtual assistant that helps IBM staff navigate complex tasks like creating job requisitions or scheduling interviews.
鈥淚 used AskHR when I joined IBM. It was great. I always felt that someone was talking to me, but it was just AI,鈥 said Al-Rashed.
These shifts align closely with the Kingdom鈥檚 Vision 2030 plan, which prioritizes digital transformation and workforce upskilling as key pillars of national development.
鈥淲hat we鈥檝e done is we鈥檝e looked at our operations in HR, and we wanted to do things such as enhance the efficiency of it, reduce the cost of it, free up the time of the employees themselves,鈥 said Al-Rashed.
The message is clear: As 黑料社区 races toward its digital future, the integration of AI is not just a competitive advantage 鈥 it is a national imperative.
For now, success lies not just in smart software, but in making technology work with, not against, the systems already in place.
