OPINION: How AI is Redefining Work in the GCC

The way we work is changing faster than our organizations are changing to support it. From the rise of the Autonomous Enterprise to the case for embedding AI at the very core of business operations, the world of work is undergoing seismic shifts that are fundamentally altering what it means to work inside an enterprise.

Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice President, SAP Middle East & Africa – South, outlines four priorities for regional organizations preparing their people for an AI-enabled workplace

The question organizations now face is not whether AI will reshape the workforce, but whether they are ready to lead that transition in a way that genuinely empowers their people.

That question is particularly relevant in the Gulf, where AI adoption is accelerating rapidly. In the UAE, SAP-commissioned research published earlier this year found that 81% of organizations said their AI initiatives were already meeting or exceeding expectations, while half were investing in workforce upskilling to support AI adoption. As AI moves deeper into business operations, preparing people for new ways of working has to advance at the same pace.

At SAP’s flagship global event, Sapphire 2026, several new workforce capabilities offered a glimpse of what this transition could look like in practice, from new ways of interacting with enterprise systems to workforce planning that brings human employees and AI agents into the same operating model.

From process operators to leaders of judgment

The Autonomous Enterprise framework introduced at Sapphire is built on an explicit design principle: humans must remain at the center, not as operators of process, but as leaders of judgment, strategy and change. As AI assistants take on the coordination work that has long consumed employee time and attention, people are freed to focus on the decisions, relationships and creative problem-solving that machines cannot replicate.

Joule Work, SAP’s reimagined AI engagement layer, illustrates this shift vividly. Rather than navigating multiple systems and entering data across screens, employees can now describe what they need to accomplish in plain language – fill an open headcount, manage my team’s time-off backlog – and Joule orchestrates the right workflows, data and agents to make it happen.

The model of work is shifting from task navigation to intent-driven interaction, reducing operational friction and returning cognitive bandwidth to the things that matter most.

Planning for a workforce that includes people and agents

One of the most strategically significant themes at Sapphire was how organizations  plan and design for a workforce that now includes both human employees and AI agents executing tasks in concert.

SAP research reveals that 62% of C-suite executives are dissatisfied with how well people data connects to business performance, making it harder to translate strategy into workforce action. SAP’s new AI-enabled workforce planning capability directly addresses this, connecting financial data from SAP Cloud ERP, contingent workforce data from SAP Fieldglass, and people and skills data from SAP SuccessFactors into a unified foundation for decision-making. Planning shifts from a periodic exercise to a continuous discipline, with AI agents able to model scenarios, simulate KPI impacts and recommend actions in real time.

New organizational modelling capabilities within SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central allow leaders to explore alternative structures, evaluate changes to roles and reporting lines, and understand implications before they are implemented, supporting thoughtful, data-informed change rather than disruptive restructuring.

Ongoing efforts to close skills gap

Across the Middle East, the rapid adoption of AI is making workforce readiness an increasingly immediate business issue. New roles are emerging, new competencies are required, and the processes that have defined work for decades are being reimagined at speed by generative AI.

Traditional approaches to workforce development, such as annual training cycles, standalone learning systems, and scheduled courses, cannot alone keep pace. The recently unveiled Workforce Upskilling Assistant offers a new capability that delivers personalized, AI-driven learning directly within the flow of daily work, whether that is in Microsoft Teams, Slack or SAP SuccessFactors itself.

By converting organizational content into adaptive micro-learning and embedding timely nudges into workflows, the assistant brings the right learning to the right person at the right moment instead of when a calendar event dictates it. Organizations  that embed learning into culture and workflows with AI-powered tools are significantly ahead of peers, and yet only a quarter of organizations  currently do this effectively.

Trust is the foundation

None of this transformation succeeds without the trust of the workforce it is designed to serve. Accenture found that more than 50% of workers already experience cognitive overload, while significant proportions report burnout and anxiety about the future of their roles.

Here, the emphasis that humans remain firmly in control reflects a commercial and human reality that enterprise leaders across our region understand well: technology that erodes trust fails. Technology that builds trust, endures.

The organizations  that will lead this era are those that invest as intentionally in workforce readiness, reskilling and governance as they do in AI platforms and automation.

The Autonomous Enterprise is, at its heart, a vision for human progress, one where intelligent systems handle the operational burden and people are empowered to pursue the work that only they can do. SAP is committed to helping organizations across the region build enterprises where that potential is fully realized.