UAE AI Spending Surges 521% as Businesses Boost Productivity

Businesses across the United Arab Emirates are sharply increasing their investments in artificial intelligence, as companies look to boost productivity, streamline operations, and build resilience amid a shifting economic landscape. According to a new report by Pemo, AI-related spending surged by 521% over the past 13 months, signalling a decisive shift from experimentation to real-world adoption.

Real Transaction Data Reveals How Companies Are Spending on AI

The findings draw from Pemo’s first UAE AI adoption report, which analyses aggregated and anonymised transactions from over 6,000 businesses and more than AED 1.4 billion in annual spend.

Notably, the dataset,captured between January and March 2026, with trend mapping from early 2025, offers a rare, real-time lens into how organisations are allocating budgets toward AI tools. As a result, the report moves beyond surveys and intent, instead reflecting actual financial behaviour across the market.

Adoption Still Early, but Momentum Is Building Fast

Despite the sharp rise in spending, only 12% of UAE businesses currently use AI tools, based on confirmed transactions. However, momentum is clearly building.

• Nearly two-thirds of adopters rely on a single AI tool, indicating early-stage usage
• Meanwhile, just 37% use multiple tools, suggesting limited enterprise-wide integration

Even so, adoption accelerated significantly in late 2025. In fact, Q4 2025 recorded three times more first-time adopters than any quarter in 2024. Since then, growth has remained steady through early 2026. Therefore, the data points to a clear inflection point where AI adoption began scaling beyond pilot use cases.

SMEs Lead the Charge, Driving Majority of AI Spend

Interestingly, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are leading this transformation.

Although large enterprises spend more per company, SMBs contribute 59% of total AI spend, reflecting both their scale and agility. At the same time, mid-sized firms record the highest frequency of AI transactions, indicating deeper and more frequent usage.

Consequently, AI adoption in the UAE is not just enterprise-led—it is broadly distributed across the business ecosystem.

From Single Tools to Integrated Workflows

At the same time, usage patterns are evolving. Businesses are increasingly combining AI tools across functions such as:

• Automation
• Software development
• Content creation
• Workflow management

This shift suggests that AI is no longer confined to isolated use cases. Instead, companies are embedding it into daily operations to unlock measurable efficiency gains.

AI Becomes Core to UAE’s Digital Growth Strategy

This trend aligns closely with the UAE’s broader ambition to build a future-ready digital economy, where AI plays a central role.

As businesses face geopolitical uncertainty across the Middle East, many are prioritising technologies that deliver immediate operational value. Consequently, firms are focusing on tools that help them operate leaner, respond faster, and maintain stability.

Leadership View: Focus on Practical Value, Not Hype

Commenting on the findings, Ayham Gorani, Co-founder and CEO of Pemo, said businesses are becoming more selective about where AI delivers tangible results.

He emphasised that organisations now prioritise efficiency, speed, and reduced operational friction. Moreover, as companies begin to see clear returns, adoption scales quickly—from single tools to broader, integrated systems.

Uneven Adoption Across Sectors, but Outlook Remains Strong

However, adoption remains uneven across industries. Many traditional sectors are still in the early phases of AI integration. Even so, as tools become more accessible and easier to deploy, adoption is expected to widen across the economy.

For now, the direction is unmistakable. AI is moving beyond experimentation and becoming a practical, business-critical tool for driving productivity, resilience, and long-term growth.