Salesforce Accelerates Middle East AI Push with $500M Saudi Investment

Editorial Team

Last updated 3-06-2025

3 min

Salesforce is heavily investing in AI, cloud services, and workforce expansion in the Middle East.

The company plans a $500 million investment in Saudi Arabia, partnering with AWS for local data centres.

Collaborations include IBM on an AI Innovation Centre and university programmes for local talent development.

Salesforce promotes "digital labour" to free teams from repetitive tasks, enhancing customer interaction time.

Alkhotani advises regional firms to incorporate AI, emphasizing its necessity for business success.

Salesforce is hitting the gas on its Middle East expansion, pumping major resources into AI, cloud services, and talent across the region. In fact, the company's been going all out, doubling its Middle East workforce in just three months and unveiling big plans for growth, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

According to Mohammed Alkhotani, Salesforce’s senior vice president for the Middle East, the firm is making a substantial $500 million investment in Saudi Arabia alone, where it's setting up new offices and partnering with AWS to establish local data centres. Alkhotani recently announced ambitions to triple the company's regional business within five years—quite a sign of confidence in the Middle Eastern market.

A cornerstone of Salesforce's strategy involves boosting its technical teams and embedding advanced AI solutions across its offerings. They're also collaborating closely with IBM on an AI Innovation Centre and creating university certification programmes aimed at nurturing local talent. It's not just about technology—Salesforce is clearly banking on brainpower as well.

I caught part of the recent Agentforce World Tour event in Dubai (virtually, sadly missed out on that fantastic local shawarma this time!), where more than 3,000 attendees gathered to discover the latest AI-driven tools and platforms like Agentforce and Customer 360. These innovations are already making waves across sectors from finance and education to energy.

One thing that Alkhotani emphasised during the event was this whole concept of "digital labour"—essentially, using AI to take over repetitive tasks so teams can actually spend more time speaking with customers. At the moment, sales teams typically spend only about 27% of their time face-to-face (or screen-to-screen!) with clients. Salesforce itself found that since integrating Agentforce internally, they managed to reduce service escalations by half, efficiently handling more than 50,000 conversations each week. That’s quite impressive.

He also had some practical advice for local businesses, suggesting that firms view AI not just as another fancy tech project to tick off a list, but rather as central to their business goals. Alkhotani put it bluntly: “Investing in digital labour is not an option. It’s a necessity.” In other words, businesses in the region really can't afford to miss the boat on smart AI applications, unless they fancy getting left behind in the digital race.

It seems like the pace at which Salesforce is upping its presence in this part of the world is carefully calculated, tapping into local talent, building the right partnerships, and focusing heavily on the kind of AI developments that are reshaping industries globally. So, if you're doing business in the Middle East, Salesforce’s aggressive moves probably signal it's time to give AI a serious think. After all, as we often say on Arageek—technology waits for nobody.

🚀 Got exciting news to share?

If you're a startup founder, VC, or PR agency with big updates—funding rounds, product launches 📢, or company milestones 🎉 — AraGeek English wants to hear from you!