How the public and private sector are navigating AI integration in the modern workplace

Arab News

4 days ago

RIYADH: As artificial intelligence transforms the modern workplace, public and private sector organizations in Saudi Arabia 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 — adapting without breaking what already works.
'Every country has old systems that are doing important work. They can't 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,' 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That challenge is particularly acute in government institutions, where outdated IT systems often clash with modern digital tools.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, Saudi Arabia is making notable progress.
ServiceNow — which has operated in the Kingdom since 2011 — 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.
'It's hard to change the way that work gets done because it becomes kind of just your muscle memory,' she said. 'To change that is like an athlete learning to change their golf swing or learning to change their basketball shot.'
The key, she says, is empathy. 'It calls for empathizing with people and understanding their work from their perspective. It takes a human approach. It's not just about the systems.'
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 'sneaker net' — employees manually switching between platforms and reentering information. Some 40 percent of productivity is lost due to these inefficiencies, she says — and likely more in the public sector.
'People who join government are there to make a difference. They're not there to serve data between one system to another,' Coleman said.
'They're 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.'
That liberation is also playing out on the industrial front. In one of ServiceNow's largest partnerships, the firm is working with Saudi Aramco to modernize its operations safely using 'digital twins' — virtual models of physical systems.
The approach allows engineers to simulate changes at oil refining plants before implementation. 'ServiceNow has taken some part of the value chain in helping those companies to make safe changes to their systems and safe upgrades and modernization,' said Coleman.
This year, the company opened its first regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia, cementing its long-term commitment to a market it views as digitally mature and globally influential.
'Saudi Arabia has a very clear strategy, and that's important,' Saif Mashat, area vice president for ServiceNow in the Middle East and Africa, told Arab News.
'Saudi Arabia is part of the G20, one of the biggest economies in the region, one of the biggest economies in the world. Saudi Arabia is a very influential country globally, and is very, very advanced when it comes to the digital era.'
Private tech leaders are also seeing an acceleration in AI adoption across the Kingdom.
According to IBM's regional vice president Ayman Al-Rashed, more than 70 percent of CEOs in Saudi Arabia have already created entirely new AI-based roles — a higher figure than the global average.
'These are jobs that didn't exist last year. These are new jobs,' he said. 'This shows you that there's a lot of interest in KSA, more than elsewhere around the globe, because the global average is between 50 and 60 percent.'
Al-Rashed explained that IBM has automated 95 percent of its internal HR functions, slashing costs by 40 percent — savings equivalent to $3.5 billion in productivity gains. That same tech, he said, is now being offered to clients.
'We came up with something we called the 'watsonx Orchestrate,'' said Al-Rashed. 'That's a lot of agents, assistants, and tools. There are actually more than 80 enterprise applications out there, and they're all out of the box. You can immediately go and use them and have the same experience.'
One standout example is 'AskHR,' a virtual assistant that helps IBM staff navigate complex tasks like creating job requisitions or scheduling interviews.
'I used AskHR when I joined IBM. It was great. I always felt that someone was talking to me, but it was just AI,' said Al-Rashed.
These shifts align closely with the Kingdom's Vision 2030 plan, which prioritizes digital transformation and workforce upskilling as key pillars of national development.
'What we've done is we've 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,' said Al-Rashed.
The message is clear: As Saudi Arabia races toward its digital future, the integration of AI is not just a competitive advantage — 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.