By: Dr. Noha Ahmed Al-Harthi: Global AI & Emerging Technologies Leader

2025: The Shift from Tools to Systems

2025 was the year organizations finally understood that AI is not a tool. It is a system.

The most costly mistake of the year was treating AI as something to add on rather than something that reshapes decision making, accountability, and power structures. Many organizations deployed advanced models but failed to redesign how decisions were made, who owned outcomes, and where human judgment intervened.

The defining lesson of 2025 is that AI maturity is not about model sophistication, but about system design. Without clear decision rights, escalation paths, and governance, AI amplifies confusion instead of intelligence.

In regions like MENA, this realization accelerated quickly. AI moved beyond experimentation and innovation narratives and began to be treated as national and organizational infrastructure. Something that must be reliable, auditable, and aligned with long term objectives.

2026 Outlook: AI as Structural Power

In 2026, AI will no longer be discussed as technology. It will be felt as power.

Competitive advantage will shift away from who has the most advanced models toward who designs the most coherent systems around them. AI will be embedded into planning, risk management, and resource allocation, shaping outcomes quietly rather than visibly.

The organizations and nations that lead will not be those that automate everything, but those that define clear boundaries for what should never be automated. AI advantage will come from governance, clarity of intent, and human judgment, not volume or speed.