Written by Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.
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Available in JeddahRiyadh is where the Kingdom writes the rules. Jeddah is where they meet the hardest test there is: an operation of millions of people, in which prediction now reaches the commander before the crowd does.
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A feel for the room before you put me in front of yours.
For most pilgrims the AI-mediated part of the journey begins before Makkah and before Saudi Arabia. SDAIA has deployed digital and AI-powered systems at 12 international airports across 8 countries under the Makkah Route initiative, including biometric registration workstations, so entry processing starts at the departure gate.
Jeddah is the arrival point for that system and the operational centre of gravity for the approach to the holy sites. It is also where SDAIA’s vice president gave the interview this page draws on.
SDAIA operates Baseer, built with the Ministry of Interior, using AI algorithms and computer vision on live feeds to detect crowd density and distribution within the Grand Mosque, and to pinpoint overcrowded zones such as the Tawaf area, moment by moment. The stated purpose is to let authorities act swiftly to prevent overcrowding or stampedes. Companion platforms Sawaher and Sawaher Qiyada analyse live security camera feeds, coordinated from the Smart Makkah Operations Center.
The Ministry of Interior’s own account of the 1447 AH season describes predictive analytics used to anticipate and mitigate congestion and hazardous conditions before they occurred, through a framework intended to accelerate strategic decision-making and, in its own words, to support field commanders.
SDAIA published Saudi Arabia’s AI Ethics Principles, which state that decisions which are irreversible or life-and-death should trigger human oversight and final determination, and which ask in the design checklist whether a system prevents overreliance on itself.
SDAIA also builds and operates Baseer. The authority that wrote the oversight requirement runs the system the requirement governs, in the setting where the consequence of getting it wrong is the highest anywhere. That is not an accusation. It is the sharpest available case of the question this research exists to ask, and it is one a Jeddah audience already lives inside.
The verb in the state’s own account is support. So the question for the room is what happens to a commander’s own reading of a crowd once the prediction always arrives first, and on what basis that commander would ever override it. Nothing published measures the override rate, what follows when the prediction is wrong, or whether unaided crowd-reading skill is maintained.
Both sources here are graded operator account: a state news agency reporting a ministry on its own performance, and an interview with the vice president of the authority whose systems he is describing. They establish what is deployed and claimed. They establish nothing about whether the oversight works. The argument is at who supervises work they cannot do and what meaningful human oversight means.
Rahim Hirji is a London-based keynote speaker on AI, work and human judgement, and the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026). He travels from London to Jeddah and across Saudi Arabia for boards, executive teams and conferences. His argument is that AI comes for judgement before it comes for jobs.
No. All keynotes are delivered in English only. This page carries an Arabic summary because the reader may read Arabic, not because the keynote is delivered in it.
That it is the sharpest available case of the oversight question. SDAIA operates Baseer, which uses computer vision to detect crowd density in the Grand Mosque and pinpoint overcrowded zones such as the Tawaf area moment by moment, and the Ministry of Interior describes predictive analytics used to support field commanders. SDAIA also wrote the principle that life-and-death decisions should trigger human oversight and final determination. Nothing published measures the override rate or whether unaided crowd-reading skill is maintained.
Three to six months ahead for an in-person date in Jeddah. Shorter is often possible for a virtual session, and sometimes in person where the diary is free and the talk already exists in the form you need. Ask earlier rather than later. There is one of him, he carries advisory clients and other commitments alongside the speaking, so not every date can be taken.
Fees are not published, and not withheld to create a negotiation. What they depend on is whether the talk already exists in the form you want or has to be built for your audience, and how much preparation the brief implies. Tell us the room, the date, the audience and what you need them to do differently, and you will get a number quickly. Schools, universities and charities are quoted differently. On travel there is one rule: outside London you book it and you pay it, because your rates are better than his and nobody is out of pocket waiting on a reimbursement. From London Heathrow to Jeddah that falls in the five to eight hour band, so an economy plus fare, arrival the night before, and normally two nights in a standard room at or near the venue. A London booking carries no travel, accommodation or expenses at all.
When the decision has already been made and the session exists to announce it. When the audience has no authority over their own work, because the talk asks them to decide which repetitions are worth keeping. When the slot runs under twenty-five minutes, because the turn needs setting up. And when the session follows a vendor pitch, since order matters more than programmes usually assume. Where the conditions are wrong we will say so, and sometimes that means reshaping the session. Occasionally it means recommending somebody else.
رحيم هرجي مؤلف ومتحدث رئيسي مقيم في لندن، يتناول الذكاء الاصطناعي والعمل والحكم البشري. مؤلف كتاب SuperSkills الصادر عن دار Kogan Page عام 2026، ومؤسس شركة The SuperSkills Intelligence Company.
حجته: الذكاء الاصطناعي يطال حكمك قبل أن يطال وظيفتك. معظم المؤسسات تنجرف إلى تبنّي الذكاء الاصطناعي عبر مئات القرارات الصغيرة التي لم يتّخذها أحد بوضوح، بدل أن تُقرّر مسبقاً أين يجب أن يبقى الحكم البشري.
يقدّم محاضرات لمجالس الإدارة وفرق القيادة والمؤتمرات، مدّتها من 40 إلى 90 دقيقة، حضورياً أو عبر الإنترنت. متاح للسفر إلى المملكة العربية السعودية.
ملاحظة مهمة: يقدّم رحيم جميع محاضراته باللغة الإنجليزية فقط.
Written by Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.
Tell me the room, the date and the shift you need. A reply within 24 hours.
Part of speaking across the Gulf. See also Riyadh and Dubai. Browse every topic, audience and region. دليل المتحدثين بالعربية.
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