Gulf Workers Embrace AI, But Workloads Rise
Professionals in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the world’s most optimistic about AI, according to Korn Ferry’s latest workforce research. But while employees report greater efficiency, many are also facing heavier workloads, raising a bigger question for employers about whether AI is actually creating better work.
Employees in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are embracing artificial intelligence with some of the highest levels of optimism globally, but the technology’s impact on their working lives is proving more complicated.
Korn Ferry’s Workforce 2026 Global Insights Report found that 81% of professionals in Saudi Arabia and 76% in the UAE feel excited and positive about how emerging technologies such as AI will change the way they work.
The findings come from a survey of more than 16,000 professionals across 11 global markets, ranging from individual contributors to CEOs. The research included 500 respondents each from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
That enthusiasm gives employers in the Gulf a potentially important advantage as organisations accelerate AI adoption.
But the report also reveals a workplace paradox: AI may be making employees faster without necessarily making their working lives easier.
Efficiency Is Rising
Among professionals using AI, 78% in Saudi Arabia and 68% in the UAE said the technology had increased their efficiency.
Both figures compare favourably with the global average of 63%.
Yet higher efficiency is not consistently translating into employees feeling that they can focus on more meaningful work.
In Saudi Arabia, 58% of respondents said they were too busy to deliver meaningful results, while 50% of UAE professionals said the same. Globally, the figure stood at 45%.
AI Is Also Creating More Work
The workload figures reveal an even more striking contradiction.
While employees are using AI to become more efficient, 64% of Saudi professionals and 59% of UAE professionals said AI tools had increased the number of tasks expected of them.
The global average was 52%.
That additional pressure appears to be affecting employees' perceptions of their capacity.
Some 56% of Saudi respondents and 53% of UAE respondents said they felt stretched beyond their capabilities at work, compared with 44% globally.
For employers, those numbers suggest that simply measuring the amount of work employees can complete after adopting AI may provide an incomplete picture of its success.
The Next Challenge Is Redesigning Work
Jonathan Holmes, Managing Director for Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Korn Ferry, described the region's enthusiasm for AI as an advantage for organisations.
But he also argued that efficiency alone will not produce growth.
The opportunity for leaders, according to Holmes, is to redesign roles and reconsider how work is performed with AI, while helping employees understand the impact of what they do.
That may become one of the more important questions facing HR leaders as workplace AI matures.
If technology allows an employee to complete a task faster, organisations have choices about what happens to the time saved. Filling every efficiency gain with additional tasks risks turning AI into another source of workload pressure rather than a tool that creates space for higher-value work.
For UAE and Saudi employers, employee resistance may not be the biggest obstacle to AI adoption, their workforces are already remarkably optimistic about the technology.
The challenge now is ensuring that enthusiasm translates into better-designed jobs, meaningful productivity and sustainable workloads rather than simply longer task lists.
Sources: Korn Ferry, Workforce 2026 Global Insights Report; Khaleej Times
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