Digital leadership in the Arab world

The Arab world is a major global economic player. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region was estimated at approximately $3.6 trillion in 2024, surpassing that of France or the UK. And within MENA, Saudi Arabia is a global player in its own right, with a GDP in 2024 exceeding $1 trillion, according to Global Business Outlook. 

 

There are over 400 million internet users across MENA, an enormous opportunity for online businesses. The most advanced market in the region is Saudi Arabia. Of the largely urban population of over 37 million, it was reported in 2023 that around 99 per cent are internet users. Social media penetration is almost as high, with 35 million people (95 per cent of the population) having social media accounts, the seventh highest percentage in the world. And where Saudi Arabia is today, the rest of the region will surely be tomorrow. This is a region that deserves the attention of global digital businesses.

 

But to serve this sophisticated audience, businesses need a deep understanding of local cultural norms, with services tailored to their varied needs and expectations.

 

The critical importance of localisation

 

Localisation will always be at the centre of any successful digital enterprise. The success of Lucidya, the leading platform for customer experience management in the Arab world, stems from the recognition that people who seem similar can in reality be very different.

 

The company was founded in 2016 to offer services analysing social media content. This was no simple feat, as the dialects and usages of Arabic vary significantly across the region. Egyptian Arabic, for example, differs so dramatically from Saudi or Levantine dialects that they feel like entirely separate languages. Because the idioms vary so greatly, any analysis of social media content needs to look beyond the words being used and understand the context of use and the emotions that are being expressed. This is not easy when a word that is innocuous in one Arabic culture is an insult in another!

 

However, Lucidya has close to a decade of experience collecting and scrutinising a huge quantity of social media posts – and today it is the leading exponent of the art of interpreting the throwaway conversations, memes and imagery used on social media.

 

Lucidya has built on its success in the field of social listening to create a 360-degree customer experience management (CXM) platform that provides businesses in the Arab world with the ability to transform customer and market data into actionable insights. By drawing on social media analytics, customer surveys and real-time behaviour tracking, Lucidya facilitates online interactions that not only reflect what a target consumer group does, but what their motivations and drivers are.

 

After listening to millions of conversations over many years, Lucidya has cracked the code and optimised its AI technology to understand 15 Arabic dialects and slang, achieving 92 per cent accuracy in sentiment analysis. This insight has yielded real business impact. Outcomes achieved by clients include a 230 per cent increase in positive brand sentiment, a 200 per cent increase in social media reach, and responses to customer inquiries that were nine times faster. This focus on understanding local issues is why businesses across the region have moved over to Lucidya, which has taken over a quarter of its clients from major global competitors in H1 2025.

 

These results not only demonstrate Lucidya’s effectiveness in providing CX services but have also earned the company a position in the prestigious Saudi Unicorn Club, reflecting both market validation and regional impact. However, Lucidya has not stopped at traditional CXM operations. As an AI-native company, it is focused on AI-powered services that add a new dimension to customer engagement.

 

Leaders in artificial intelligence

 

Saudi Arabia is a global market leader in AI development. According to the 2024 Global AI Index, the country is the leading nation in government AI strategy, with public AI spending commitments significantly outranking those of the USA and China, and totalling more than $40 billion over the next decade. The country has established itself as an AI powerhouse, with AI projected to contribute $235.2 billion (12.4 per cent) to the kingdom’s gross domestic product by 2030.

 

Becoming a leader in AI is a core component of Vision 2030, the government’s strategy for economic, social and cultural diversification in Saudi Arabia. And with a combination of government and private sector support, a powerful AI ecosystem is growing in the country.

 

The Saudi AI initiative HUMAIN is one pillar of this ecosystem. The company is a key player in the transformation of areas such as education, healthcare and urban development, with a goal of building locally controlled and culturally relevant AI capabilities.

 

Lucidya is another key part of this expanding ecosystem, and it has an identical goal. With an AI model that has been built from scratch, and based on its experience with social listening in the Arab world, the company has recently developed a localised agentic AI tool that takes its CXM platform a big step forward.

 

However, moving into the AI space is not without challenges. AI feeds on data, much of it personal data, and there are privacy concerns that need to be addressed. Saudi Arabia has rigorous requirements in privacy and the ethical use of AI, and Lucidya is fully compliant with the Saudi Data and AI Authority as well as international regulatory standards such as GDPR. Cyber-security is another important consideration, and here Lucidya is fully aligned with major standards such as SOC2 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, making it a safe and trusted choice in the MENA region.

 

Building a profitable future in the Arab world

 

There is no doubt the Arab world is an increasingly important player in the field of digital business. As well as being a significant market for e-commerce and digital entertainment, the technology sector is growing rapidly, especially in the area of AI. This is a region every ambitious digital company should explore, and Lucidya is a key partner with its deep expertise in Arabic language, culture and customer expectations.

 

It’s a challenging environment, but if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Not everyone can make the cut in Saudi. But working with Lucidya will give you a far better chance than most.

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For more information, please visit www.lucidya.com