Words by Naji Atallah, Head of Construction and Manufacturing for EMEA Emerging at Autodesk
“Across the GCC, AI is moving rapidly from ambition to implementation. Saudi Arabia has designated 2026 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence, while the UAE is working to transition 50% of government services and operations to agentic AI within two years. The GCC’s construction challenge isn’t ambition. It’s capacity. In Saudi Arabia alone, MEED estimates around $130 billion of giga-project contracts have been awarded, with close to $200 billion more moving through the market. No workforce can deliver that with yesterday’s construction methods.
“That’s where AI can make its biggest contribution: helping teams do more with the people and expertise they already have. We are already seeing signs of that shift. Autodesk’s 2026 State of Design & Make: AI Pulse research found that 92% of Middle East organisations surveyed are reporting productivity gains from AI. The next step is turning that into delivery
“The bigger shift is from AI as an assistant to AI that understands the context behind the work. Construction projects generate enormous amounts of data across designs, schedules and decisions, but that information is rarely connected. When it is, AI can analyse project information, learn from historical data, explore design alternatives and flag potential risks earlier, while engineers and designers remain responsible for deciding what action to take. This approach is what helps teams focus their attention where it matters most, which is how a stretched workforce delivers more.
“As adoption accelerates, success should not be measured by how much AI we deploy, but by what it enables people to achieve. For the GCC’s construction industry, that means combining trusted data, connected workflows and human expertise to expand capacity, reduce rework, and ultimately deliver better-performing built environments “.
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