NextGen AI Summit Riyadh 2026

The NextGen AI Summit Riyadh 2026 is a one-day artificial intelligence summit taking place on 12 August 2026 at the voco Riyadh hotel in the Saudi capital. Organised by Inc. Arabia Events, it gathers AI practitioners, enterprise technology leaders, machine-learning specialists and innovators from across the Gulf to examine how applied AI is reshaping business and public services. It is built for decision-makers who want a focused, single-day briefing on where the technology stands and how to deploy it, rather than a sprawling multi-day expo.

Why Riyadh, and why now

Saudi Arabia has moved quickly from AI ambition to AI investment. Under the Vision 2030 diversification agenda, the Kingdom has poured capital into sovereign AI infrastructure, national data centres, Arabic large language models and giga-projects such as NEOM that treat machine intelligence as core infrastructure rather than a bolt-on. The 2026 calendar reflects that momentum: a dense run of summits, expos and developer events now anchors Riyadh as one of the most active AI markets outside the United States and China.

The NextGen AI Summit sits inside that ecosystem as a practical, regionally grounded gathering. The organisers frame the day under the banner of "unlocking tomorrow," with attendees drawn not only from the Kingdom but from across the wider Gulf, including the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait. For visitors trying to read the Saudi AI market, a compact regional summit like this is a useful entry point: it surfaces the priorities of local buyers and the vendors chasing them without the noise of a giant trade show.

Programme and themes

The summit is structured around keynotes, expert panels and live technology demonstrations rather than academic paper sessions. Expect the agenda to track the questions most relevant to enterprise adopters in 2026: generative AI in production, intelligent automation, data ethics and governance, smart governance, and the changing shape of work as agents and copilots enter day-to-day operations. Real-world deployment is the recurring frame, with sessions mapped to the sectors driving regional demand:

• Government and public-sector digital services
• Healthcare and life sciences
• Banking, financial services and fintech
• Energy and sustainability
• Manufacturing and industrial automation
• Retail, e-commerce and smart mobility
• Education, media, entertainment and gaming

That sector spread is deliberate. Rather than treating AI as a single horizontal technology, the summit organises its content around the verticals where Saudi organisations are spending, so a banker, a hospital CIO and a manufacturer can each find sessions that speak to their own deployment challenges.

Who is speaking and who should attend

The speaker line-up leans toward operators who run AI and technology functions inside major Saudi organisations. Confirmed industry voices include Sultan Moraished, Group Head of Technology and Corporate Excellence at Red Sea Global; Eng. Muhammad Mudassar, Head of Artificial Intelligence at NEOM; Sameer Joshi, Director of Information Technology at SPIMACO; Guil Rodrigues, Head of Digital Experiences and Platforms at the Public Investment Fund; and Abdulaziz Al-Osime, CEO and founder of Right Decision. The mix gives attendees access to people who are actually budgeting for and shipping AI inside the region's flagship employers, from giga-project developers to pharmaceutical and financial institutions.

The summit is aimed at a senior audience: chief technology, data, information and AI officers, heads of digital transformation, innovation directors and the engineers and product leads who report to them. It is equally useful for vendors and start-ups looking to understand procurement priorities among large Saudi buyers, and for investors tracking where regional AI demand is concentrating. Because the format is single-day and panel-heavy, it rewards attendees who come with specific deployment questions and want candid answers from peers facing the same constraints.

Format and how to attend

As a compact, single-day event, the NextGen AI Summit Riyadh 2026 is designed to deliver high-density content and curated networking without a major time commitment. The format combines stage sessions with demo activations and structured opportunities to meet sponsors, speakers and peers, making it a practical fixture for anyone building an AI roadmap who wants regional context fast.

Registration, sponsorship and speaking enquiries are handled through the official Inc. Arabia event page. Attendees should confirm the final agenda, timings and any access requirements directly with the organiser ahead of the August date, as line-ups for one-day summits in the region are often finalised close to the event. For anyone tracking the Gulf's AI build-out, the NextGen AI Summit Riyadh 2026 offers a concentrated window into how Saudi enterprises are turning AI strategy into deployed systems.