Katch How AI is Changing the PR Landscape in Saudi Arabia

12th October, 2026 | Disruption, Public Relations

by - Paudie Marum

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in the Kingdom’s businesses, brands, and everyday lives, the technology is changing how PR is planned and delivered, but the human side of communications still matters more than ever

Artificial intelligence. That big, scary term. It is everywhere. It’s virtually impossible to go through a day without some mention or use of AI. And it has been increasingly difficult to ignore over the past few years, so if you’re not using it, you’re getting left behind.

In Saudi Arabia, it is becoming even harder to look away than most places on the planet.

In March 2026, Saudi Arabia designated 2026 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence, reflecting the Kingdom’s growing focus on AI and its role in future development and innovation. The Kingdom has spent years investing in data, technology, and digital infrastructure, with the Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA) working towards the ambition of positioning the Kingdom as a global leader in data-driven economies. And it’s definitely one of the countries winning in the race.

That ambition is already translating into the workplace. PwC found that 69% of employees in Saudi Arabia had used AI in their jobs over the previous 12 months, while 36% were using generative AI weekly or daily. The benefits are clear too, with 77% reporting productivity gains and 85% saying AI had improved the quality of their work.

Even though, at its core, it is a human-centred field, PR is no exception.

AI can now research a topic in seconds, summarise hundreds of pages of information, suggest campaign ideas, analyse data, draft a press release, create an image, and help turn a long report into a social post before the kettle has boiled.

That is an extraordinary shift.

But there is a catch. The easier it becomes to create something, the harder it becomes to create something worth paying attention to. For PR professionals working in Saudi Arabia, that may be the most important distinction of all, as the name of the game is still all about getting noticed.

Saudi Arabia Is Moving Quickly

The Kingdom has been building towards this moment for some time. AI is closely connected to Saudi Arabia’s wider digital transformation ambitions under Vision 2030, with SDAIA’s National Strategy for Data & AI targeting infrastructure, investment, talent, research, responsible AI adoption, and Arabic-language technologies.

The scale of adoption is becoming increasingly apparent. PwC’s 2026 research found that 44% of CEOs in Saudi Arabia reported significant AI deployment in demand generation, including sales, marketing, and customer service. A further 40% said AI was being significantly applied across support functions, while 37% were already using it in strategic direction setting.

In other words, AI is not just sitting in a separate technology department waiting for everyone else to catch up, it is becoming a cornerstone of how businesses work.

For PR agencies, that creates plenty of opportunities, but equally some important pitfalls. Research that once took hours can be completed far more quickly. Media monitoring can be streamlined. Coverage reports can be organised and analysed at speed. Large amounts of information can be summarised, compared and interrogated. First drafts can be produced faster, leaving more time for the work that actually requires a human brain.

And that last part is important.

AI Can Do the Legwork

There is a growing temptation to think of AI as a replacement for traditional PR skills. In reality, it is often much more useful as an extremely fast assistant.

Ask AI to summarise a 50-page report and it can do it in seconds. Ask it to pull out the most relevant statistics, identify themes across several documents or suggest questions for an interview, and it can save an enormous amount of time.

That matters in an industry where time is often in short supply.

The value of AI is particularly clear when it comes to the less glamorous parts of PR. Research, initial information gathering, reporting, data organisation, transcription, brainstorming, and first-pass editing can all become considerably quicker with the right tools.

And nobody in PR is going to complain about having less admin. The important part is what happens afterwards.

AI can tell you what has already been said. A PR professional needs to work out what is worth saying next, and creating a story worth listening to.

It can identify a journalist who writes about hospitality. It cannot necessarily tell you that this particular story is a better fit for them than another one, or that now is a bad time to approach them because something much bigger is dominating the news agenda.

It can suggest ten campaign ideas. It does not have to live with the consequences of choosing the wrong one. And now, that distinction really matters.

The Human Advantage Is Becoming More Valuable

There is an interesting paradox emerging as AI becomes more sophisticated. The better the technology gets at producing content, the more valuable genuine human thinking becomes.

Saudi Arabia is a particularly interesting market in this respect. PR here requires an understanding of the local media landscape, cultural context, audiences, language, and the pace at which the Kingdom is evolving. Boilerplate campaigns don’t work. They need nuance and local savvy.

A message that works perfectly well in London may not work in Riyadh. An international campaign may need a completely different angle for a Saudi audience. Even when the words are technically correct, the tone, reference points, and cultural context can make the difference between something that feels natural and something that feels like it has simply been translated.

AI can help with language. It does not automatically give you cultural understanding.

That comes from people.

And in PR, believe it or not, people are rather important.

When Everything Starts Looking Like AI

There is another challenge emerging as AI becomes easier to use. People are beginning to recognise it.

You can see it in writing, where certain phrases, structures, and overly polished sentences have become remarkably familiar. You can see it in social media captions. You can see it in advertising. And, increasingly, you can see it in imagery. It just all looks the same.

Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than the recent wave of AI-generated restaurant posters and food visuals appearing across social media, and even making their way onto menus. The ones that look like a burger, but don’t look anything like a burger.

You know the ones.

The burger has approximately 14 layers of cheese. The waiter has seven fingers. The coffee looks physically impossible. There are 25 people sitting around a table that could realistically fit six. The restaurant sign has somehow changed spelling halfway through the image.

Technically, the image exists.

Creatively, perhaps it should have stayed in the prompt box, and definitely nowhere near a menu. Just take a few pictures of the food, it’s not rocket science.

This is not to say that AI-generated imagery has no place in marketing. Quite the opposite. It can be an incredibly useful tool for visualising concepts, exploring creative directions, and producing content quickly when used properly.

The problem comes when speed becomes the only consideration.

When every restaurant, hotel, retailer, and brand starts using the same tools in the same way, the technology that was supposed to make content more distinctive can actually make everything look remarkably similar.

And audiences notice.

Saudi Consumers Are Embracing AI, But That Does Not Mean They Want Everything Made by It

The appetite for AI in Saudi Arabia is clear. A 2025 KPMG study found that 84% of people surveyed in Saudi Arabia accepted or approved of AI, while 89% expected it to deliver benefits. At the same time, 56% said they had experienced or observed a loss of human interaction and connection because of AI.

That combination is telling.

People want AI, but they are quickly learning where they want it.

The same study found that 91% of respondents reported improved efficiency as a benefit of AI, while 68% were unsure whether online content could be trusted because it may have been AI-generated.

There is a similar pattern when it comes to shopping. Research from Tabby found that 43% of shoppers across Saudi Arabia and the UAE were using AI to help make purchase decisions, yet only 30% fully trusted its recommendations. The technology is clearly useful, but usefulness does not automatically equal trust.

For PR, that is a crucial distinction. People may happily use AI to compare hotels, find a restaurant, summarise a product or answer a question. That does not mean they want every interaction with a brand to feel like it came from a machine.

Could We See a Return to the Old Way?

Perhaps. It is unlikely that it will be a complete 180 though, and certainly not because AI is going away. But there may be a growing appreciation for things that feel unmistakably human.

A beautifully written piece of copy. A genuinely funny social post. A photograph that captures a real moment. A thoughtful conversation with a journalist. A campaign idea that could only have come from understanding a particular audience.

In some ways, AI may make these things more valuable precisely because they become less common.

We have already seen the beginnings of a backlash against generic AI content globally, particularly when audiences feel that brands have used technology as a shortcut instead of investing in a proper creative idea. As AI-generated content becomes easier to produce, originality becomes harder to fake.

That could eventually lead to a funny situation where brands start deliberately doing things the old-fashioned way because people can tell when something has been over-processed. We’re not saying the old way is inherently better, but sometimes, a person simply does a better job.

The PR Agency of the Future Will Still Need People

For agencies, this means getting better at using AI. Not relying on it solely, but naturally integrating it into the work you do on a daily basis. The strongest PR teams will be the ones that understand where AI genuinely adds value.

Use it to speed up research.

Use it to interrogate data.

Use it to organise information.

Use it to challenge an idea.

Use it to help turn a long report into something more manageable.

Then let people do the things people are good at.

Think.

Question.

Create.

Build relationships.

Understand nuance.

Know when a story has potential.

Know when it does not.

Pick up the phone.

Have a conversation.

And, occasionally, tell a client that their AI-generated restaurant poster looks terrible. I can’t stress this enough, just take some pictures of the food like we’ve been doing for decades.

That balance is becoming particularly important as AI develops. The technology is getting better at producing polished outputs, but polished does not always mean effective.

In PR, the objective is, and always has been, to make people care.

The Sweet Spot Is Somewhere in the Middle

AI is going to continue changing PR in Saudi Arabia. In many ways, it already has.

The Kingdom is moving quickly, businesses are adopting the technology at pace, and 2026’s designation as the Year of AI only reinforces how central it has become to the country’s future.

For PR professionals, that should be exciting.

There is an opportunity to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time thinking about the work that actually makes a difference. There is an opportunity to analyse more information, move faster, and give clients better insight. There is an opportunity to use technology to make good teams even better.

But there is also a responsibility to know where to stop.

The best use of AI in PR may ultimately be the use that you barely notice.

The research is quicker. The reporting is smarter. The admin is lighter. The thinking is sharper.

But the idea still feels original. The copy still sounds like a person wrote it. The image still has a reason for existing. The campaign still understands its audience. The journalist still wants to pick up the phone.

That is where the balance lies.

AI can make PR faster, but it cannot make a brand interesting on its own. That still takes people. And it always should.

For more related updates and to Katch us covering similar topics, watch this space!

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