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 across the GulfOne Gulf state has written the over-reliance problem into national guidance, and almost nobody outside the Kingdom has noticed. English-language keynotes on AI, work and human judgement across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar: Riyadh, Jeddah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha.
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Rahim Hirji is the author of SuperSkills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI, published by Kogan Page in 2026, and the founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. He is based in London and speaks worldwide, in English.
Earlier in his career he worked for the government of Abu Dhabi. He has spoken at Dubai Arbitration Week, and his book was reviewed by Arab News. The argument rests on research across more than 200 organisations in 30 countries since 2019, published openly and in full at the research estate, where every source is graded and the open questions stay visible.
AI rarely takes a whole job. It takes the first draft, the initial analysis, the routine review. Those were also the tasks through which people built the judgement that made them senior. The work still ships, the output often improves, and nothing triggers an alarm.
The question for a leadership team is therefore about mode rather than adoption. Is the organisation drifting into AI through a thousand small reasonable decisions nobody quite made, or designing it by deciding in advance where human judgement has to remain? Drift asks nothing of you. That is what makes it the default.
Every document behind this section was read at the issuing body's own page. That distinction does more work in the Gulf than almost anywhere, because several of the most-quoted facts about AI in the region trace back to press releases rather than to any government document.
Saudi Arabia's SDAIA AI Ethics Principles, version 1.0 of September 2023, carry an assessment checklist that asks system designers a question no other document in the region asks: does your AI system design prevent overconfidence in or overreliance on the AI system with necessary human intervention mechanisms. That is the argument of this keynote, written into a national governance instrument. Three qualifications travel with it: the language sits in a checklist annexe rather than in the principle text, the instrument is guidance rather than statute, and version 1.0 dates from 2023.
The UAE Charter of 10 June 2024 states human oversight as Principle 6 and emphasises the irreplaceable value of human judgment. It names no duty-holder and sets no competence requirement. The binding instrument sits in one free zone: DIFC Regulation 10 reasons that where a system operates for its deployer its position is substantially similar to that of an employee, and makes the deployer liable accordingly. Qatar's ministerial guidelines say AI systems should not autonomously make decisions of significant consequence and should permit appeal or override. The phrase human in the loop appears nowhere in that document.
The gap runs through all three. Not one of them requires that the human exercising oversight be able to perform the work being supervised. The full account, document by document, is at AI and work in the Gulf.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Statistics reports that 33.1 per cent of establishments used AI technologies in 2025, up 20.0 per cent on 2024, with information and communication at 61.1 per cent, financial and insurance at 52.9 per cent and education at 51.0 per cent. It is the only official national AI adoption statistic published by any of the three countries.
Neither the UAE nor Qatar publishes an official figure for AI adoption, AI-related employment or workforce readiness. Every UAE adoption percentage in circulation, including the ones quoted confidently from conference stages, is vendor-produced. A speaker who tells a Gulf audience what its own adoption rate is should be asked where the number came from.
The regional ambition is real and unusually well documented. Saudi Arabia's SAMAI programme passed one million citizens trained in November 2025, of whom 52 per cent were women and 70 per cent were already employed, and reported 1,563,983 beneficiaries by June 2026 including 14,495 specialists. The UAE announced a May 2026 Cabinet programme to train 80,000 federal employees in agentic AI tools. Abu Dhabi reports over 95 per cent of its 30,000-plus employees completing AI training, framed explicitly as enhancing rather than replacing human-centred public service.
Read carefully, that is training throughput rather than capability, and certificates rather than demonstrated skill. It is a considerably better evidenced position than most of the world can show, and it still leaves the question this keynote puts to a board: can the people signing off the output still do the work? The distinction is at measuring adoption properly.
Government and public-sector leadership, financial services, professional services, and corporate and association conferences across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council. Delivery is in English only, which is stated on every page in the region including the Arabic ones. Rahim travels from London, and where travel is not practical the same session is delivered online. He can travel to the region or deliver virtually across all time zones.
Three keynotes, all versions of one argument. Drift vs Design is the signature talk for boards and executive teams. We Are Superheroes covers the seven human skills that grow more valuable as the tools spread. WTH, What the Human is a live judgement test for boards, run in the room, December to March only. Full descriptions are at keynotes.
He is the wrong choice for a tools demonstration, a vendor showcase or a technical AI briefing, and for any brief that needs an optimistic message with the difficult part removed. If that is the brief, the guide to choosing an AI keynote speaker names four other kinds of speaker and when to pick each.
Rahim Hirji works across the Gulf and the wider Middle East. He is the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), reviewed by Arab News, he has spoken at Dubai Arbitration Week, and earlier in his career he worked for the government of Abu Dhabi. He delivers English-language keynotes on AI, work and human judgement in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, in person and online.
Saudi Arabia, and on the evidence gathered here it is the only one. SDAIA's AI Ethics Principles, version 1.0 of September 2023, ask system designers in the assessment checklist whether the design prevents overconfidence in or overreliance on the AI system with necessary human intervention mechanisms. The language sits in a checklist annexe rather than the principle text, and the instrument is guidance rather than statute.
Saudi Arabia including Riyadh and Jeddah, the United Arab Emirates including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and Qatar including Doha, along with the wider Gulf Cooperation Council. He is based in London and travels to the region, and can deliver virtually across all time zones.
No. All keynotes are delivered in English only. The Riyadh and Jeddah pages are published in Arabic and the Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha pages carry an Arabic summary, because the reader reads Arabic. The English-only rule is stated on each of those pages in Arabic.
Three to six months ahead for an in-person date in the Gulf. 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. Flights are quoted from London Heathrow and the cabin follows the length of the flight: coach under five hours, economy plus from five, business from eight. Arrival is the night before, always, with normally two nights' accommodation overseas. 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.
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, and a straight answer on fit even when the answer is somebody else.
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