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According to PwC’ s analysis unit, Strategy &, the GCC region is set to reap US $ 23.6 billion in economic impact from Generative AI by 2030. In what analysts called a conservative top-down estimate, Saudi Arabia will see US $ 12.2 billion in value, and the UAE US $ 5.3 billion. The rest will be shared among Qatar, US $ 2.6 billion, Kuwait, US $ 1.6 billion, Oman, US $ 1.3 billion, and Bahrain, US $ 600 million.
The second-highest ranked industry in Strategy &’ s projection was banking and financial services, which is predicted to see a US $ 3.5-billion bump. The Gulf’ s BFSI sector has long been a trendsetter in technology adoption. With a savvy eye on consumers’ shifting preferences, legacy banks have been quick to cater.
There are many examples, from the rise of digital banks, Emirates NBD’ s Liv, Mashreq Neo, Gulf International Bank’ s meem, and Bank ABC’ s ila, to the roaring trade in FinTech, such as Dubai’ s PayTabs, Optasia, and Sarwa, Abu Dhabi’ s NymCard, and Kuwait’ s One Global.
When it comes to arduous, cyclic tasks like preparing quarterly reports, reconciling ledgers, and aligning with regulatory standards, Generative AI models can do the work of dozens of people in a fraction of the time. A reduction in sweat and tears means happier employees. Greater accuracy means happier regulators. And enhanced efficiency means happier board members.
What Generative AI brings is a means to plug gaps and overhaul juddering processes. Legacy systems and manual workflows are routinely accompanied by silos, a sinister word that in the business world denotes inefficiency. Generative AI can essentially become a field marshal for change in five main areas. In many ways, large-language models, LLMs were made for financial professionals.
Market intelligence
Market intelligence is a labour-intensive process at the best of times, but where data silos are present, it becomes maddening; and if information is not current, the task is impractical. With Generative AI, finance departments can automate gathering and collation of data from sources as diverse as market reports, social media, and news pages.
AI is a natural pattern-matcher, so weeding out emerging trends, where challenging for a human, is
a trivial exercise for Generative AI, which can quickly provide a buffet of actionable insights that lead to shrewder decision-making.
Compliance
The Gulf region is exceptionally business-friendly, but governments are pragmatic in their attitudes to regulation. To protect consumers and economic security, mandates are periodically introduced that change enterprises’ risk profiles. In seconds, Generative AI can consume and commit to memory gargantuan chunks of information, a task that would take weeks for a human professional to complete.
Generative AI can then automate the extraction of information from a range of sources and classify it in line with regulatory requirements. From employees’ payroll information to customers’ PII, automation increases accuracy and speed and takes a lot of the headache out of compliance management.
Contract interpretation
What Generative AI can do for compliance extends to contract management. It can extract key clauses and present advice to decision-makers with considerably less risk of missing the fine-print than if a human had performed the task. Generative AI can speedily discover and arrange salient information such as payment terms.
It is also ideally placed to retrieve information that human agents would have difficulty in committing to memory, like supplier-specific clauses. Generative AI allows employees to focus on negotiation and compliance, thereby, once again improving risk management.
Sid Bhatia, Area VP and General Manager, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Dataiku
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