UAE SMEs’ AI spending soars fivefold, new study finds
First ever Pemo SME Spend Index finds almost three in ten UAE businesses now pay for AI tools
Dubai, UAE, October 2026: UAE businesses spent five times more on AI in Q3 2026 than in the same quarter last year, according to the first ever Pemo SME Spend Index. The new quarterly index from Pemo, the UAE spend management platform trusted by more than 10,000 businesses, is built on millions of anonymised business transactions. It shows where UAE businesses are putting their money, based on what they pay for.
Key findings, Q3 2026
- UAE businesses spent five times more on AI than in Q3 2025.
- Almost three in ten businesses (29%) paid for at least one AI tool.
- The typical business paying for AI spent AED 268 a month.
- AI was one of the fastest-growing spending categories.
- More businesses paid for AI tools (29%) than for hotel stays (17%) or flights (16%).
- Anthropic, the maker of Claude, was the biggest AI provider by spend in most sectors.
An AI-first economy:
The findings come as the UAE pushes to lead the world in AI under its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031. The federal government’s Agentic AI Project aims to move half of all federal government sectors, services and operations to AI-driven models within two years, and Abu Dhabi is working towards a fully AI-native government. There have also been calls from leaders for every company in the UAE’s digital economy to become AI-first.
The Pemo SME Spend Index shows how far SMEs have travelled towards that goal, measured by what they pay for. AI is still a small line in the budget, at less than 1% of card spend, but it already makes up about a quarter of all software spend.
Where the money is going:
Compared with Q3 2025, AI was the fastest-growing category of business spending, more than quadrupling. Software spending rose by 19%.
Sector by sector:
When it comes to the leaders, perhaps unsurprisingly, companies operating in technology fields are leading the way. Half (50%) of technology companies pay for AI, spending a typical AED 880 a month, the highest of any sector.
Marketing agencies follow closely, with 46% paying for AI. Slightly fewer of them use AI than technology firms, but they put a bigger share of their budget into it: AI makes up 6% of marketing agencies’ card spend, compared with 5% for technology companies.
AI is moving into traditional industries too, with 38% of real estate firms and 35% of professional services firms now paying for AI tools. Construction (17%) and hospitality (16%) are only just getting started, with around one in six businesses paying for AI.
Anthropic, the company behind Claude, and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, are closely matched. Anthropic is the most used AI provider among technology, real estate and professional services firms, while OpenAI leads in media, events, healthcare and construction. By spend, Anthropic is the biggest AI provider in most sectors.
Ayham Gorani, Co-founder and CEO of Pemo, said: “Every day, thousands of UAE businesses run their spending through Pemo, and that gives us a unique view of how the SME economy is moving. Spending is one of the clearest signals there is: it shows what businesses prioritise, where they see growth and what they are prepared to invest in. We created the Pemo SME Spend Index to share that view with the market, as a regular barometer of the health and priorities of the UAE’s SMEs.
This first edition tells a clear story. AI has moved from a talking point to a line in the budget for a growing number of businesses, and SMEs are rethinking where their money goes as a result. SMEs are the backbone of the UAE economy, and as the country builds towards its AI ambitions, we will track every quarter how quickly that shift reaches every sector.”
The Pemo SME Spend Index will be published every quarter, with sector editions alongside the main release. The next edition, covering Q4 2026, is planned for January 2027.
Methodology. The Pemo SME Spend Index is built on millions of anonymised, settled card transactions made by businesses on Pemo between October 2025 and September 2026. Year-on-year comparisons for spending categories use only businesses active in both quarters.
Total AI spend across Pemo’s business customers was about five times higher in Q3 2026 than in Q3 2025. Among businesses active in both quarters, AI spend rose about four times and the share paying for AI rose from 21% to 35%.
AI tools are identified from a fixed list of around 45 AI-native vendors, matched on merchant names. AI included in Microsoft or Google software suites is not counted, so the index understates total AI use. Typical spend figures are medians per paying business. Sectors are shown only where at least 100 businesses were active in the quarter and at least 30 paid for AI, and no figure is published where a single business accounts for more than 25% of it. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
The index reflects spending by Pemo customers on Pemo cards. Pemo customers are not a representative sample of all UAE SMEs.
About Pemo:
Pemo is the UAE spend management platform trusted by more than 10,000 businesses. Founded in 2022 and backed by investors including Cherry Ventures, Shorooq Partners, Augmentum Fintech and Speedinvest, Pemo gives growing businesses corporate cards, bill payments and real-time spend control in one platform.
