RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s AI-native startups are outperforming global and regional peers in strategic execution and commercial growth, according to a report released by Amazon Web Services on Tuesday, highlighting the Kingdom’s push to become a global technology hub under Vision 2030.
The report, titled “Engines of Growth,” surveyed 3,413 startup founders and senior leaders across 20 countries, examining the rise of AI-native companies — businesses less than five years old that have been built around advanced artificial intelligence from the outset.
The findings show that AI-native firms are scaling faster and reaching key business milestones with significantly fewer employees and in less time than traditional companies.
According to the Saudi Arabia data sheet accompanying the report, 72 percent of Saudi AI-native startups have a formal AI strategy in place, exceeding the global AI-native average of 68 percent and significantly outperforming traditional businesses.
Saudi AI-native startups also reported average annual revenue growth of 150 percent, close to the global AI-native average of 156 percent and well above the 62 percent recorded by Saudi startups overall.
