AI Adoption Doubles in Saudi Arabia as ChatGPT Leads the Market

August 10, 2026 Rachel Kim – Technology Editor Technology

Saudi Arabia AI Adoption Doubles as ChatGPT Leads Enterprise and Consumer Downloads

Artificial intelligence adoption more than doubled among internet users across Saudi Arabia, reaching 45.2 percent according to the fifth edition of the Saudi Internet Report released by the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST).

The Tech TL;DR:

  • Adoption Surge: AI tool usage hit 45.2% of internet users in Saudi Arabia, more than double the prior year’s metric.
  • Application Leaderboard: OpenAI’s ChatGPT ranked as the most downloaded AI application, followed by Google Gemini and DeepSeek, alongside the national HUMAIN platform.
  • Demographic Lead: Usage peaked among individuals aged 20 to 29 at 55.7%, with female adoption rates outpacing males at 52.8% to 39.4%.

Demographic and Regional Breakdown of Infrastructure Usage

Adoption rates were highest among the 20 to 29 age bracket at 55.7 percent, closely followed by users aged 10 to 19 at 53.4 percent. Usage metrics tapered off among older demographics, registering 27.4 percent for users aged 50 to 59 and 14.8 percent for those aged 60 to 74. Concurrently, overall internet usage within the 60 to 74 demographic climbed from 88.9 percent in 2024 to 92.8 percent in 2025.

Regionally, Tabuk recorded the highest penetration of AI tool usage at 58.5 percent, followed by the Eastern Province at 53.8 percent. Jazan logged the lowest regional adoption rate at 30.7 percent. Gender segmentation within the data showed female internet users engaging with AI tools at a rate of 52.8 percent, compared to 39.4 percent for male users.

Workload Characterization and Leading AI Toolchains

When categorizing functional use cases, searching for information dominated user activity at 80.8 percent. Generating ideas followed at 40.1 percent, with study and education accounting for 37.7 percent of operations. Content creation, including images, videos, and presentations, represented 25.7 percent, language translation accounted for 25.1 percent, and 17.3 percent of users applied AI tools for work-related execution.

In terms of software deployment, ChatGPT secured the position of the most downloaded AI application in the Kingdom. It was followed by Google Gemini and DeepSeek, with the national HUMAIN platform also maintaining a significant footprint on enterprise and consumer lists.

Macroeconomic Context and Global Digital Readiness

According to data cited in the CST report, Saudi Arabia secured the top global position in the International Telecommunication Union’s 2025 Digital Readiness Index.

Developer Implementation: Querying LLM APIs Efficiently

import requests
import time

API_ENDPOINT = "https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions"
HEADERS = {
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
}

def query_llm_with_backoff(prompt, retries=3, backoff_factor=2):
    payload = {
        "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
        "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": prompt}]
    }
    
    for attempt in range(retries):
        response = requests.post(API_ENDPOINT, json=payload, headers=HEADERS)
        if response.status_code == 200:
            return response.json()
        elif response.status_code == 429:
            sleep_time = backoff_factor ** attempt
            time.sleep(sleep_time)
        else:
            response.raise_for_status()
    raise Exception("Rate limit exceeded maximum retries.")

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