WEF names two Saudi AI startups among 100 global technology pioneers
Two Saudi Arabia-based AI startups, Intella and Nommas.ai, have been named to the World Economic Forum's 2026 Technology Pioneers list, which selects 100 early-stage companies from around the world for their potential to reshape industry and society.
The recognition places both companies in a cohort spanning 23 countries that the WEF says is focused on building the infrastructure for the next era of artificial intelligence.
Through the two-year program, both companies will engage with policymakers, investors and industry leaders through the WEF's global platform.
The Technology Pioneers program, launched in 2000, selects early-stage companies from around the world and invites them to engage with public and private sector leaders through the WEF's global platform.
The WEF said the 2026 selection reflects a shift in where innovation is happening. While recent advances in AI have centred on models and consumer applications, many of this year's pioneers are focused on building the software and physical infrastructure needed to run AI at scale.
Intella: Arabic-first speech intelligence
Intella was founded in 2021 by CEO Nour Taher and CTO Omar Mansour and offers enterprise-grade transcription, analytics, and AI-powered customer engagement tools tailored to more than 25 Arabic dialects. Now headquartered in Riyadh, the company was originally established in Egypt before relocating to Saudi Arabia.
Intella's core offering is an Arabic-first speech-to-text engine capable of transcribing speech across different Arabic dialects, along with a suite of analytics tools for call centres and media companies.
The company addresses a well-documented gap in global AI. Major platforms have historically underperformed in Arabic language processing due to the complexity of dialect variation across the region. Intella's proprietary speech-to-text models have achieved what it claims is a global record accuracy of 95.73% for Arabic transcription, significantly outperforming major competitors including Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and IBM Watson.
In September 2025, Intella raised $12.5 million in an oversubscribed Series A led by Prosus, with participation from 500 Global, Wa'ed Ventures, Hala Ventures, Idrisi Ventures and HearstLab, bringing its total funding to $16.9 million. The company more than doubled its revenue in 2024 and projected sevenfold growth in 2025.
The WEF's own description of the 2026 cohort specifically highlighted Intella, noting that Saudi Arabia's Arabic-first speech AI addresses a critically underserved language technology gap for 400 million speakers.
Nommas.ai: industrial AI for manufacturing
Nommas.ai was founded in 2019 by Abdulaziz Al-Subaie and builds tools that help factories run more efficiently using artificial intelligence and data analytics. Based in Riyadh, the company targets Saudi Arabia's manufacturing sector, a market the government is pushing to modernise under Vision 2030.
Nommas specialises in AI-driven visual inspection systems for manufacturing, offering computer vision and machine learning solutions that automate inspection processes and improve quality control and operational efficiency. The company also provides consultancy services for manufacturing and digital transformation.
Its platform, which it calls a cognitive factory intelligence system, processes real-time data from factory floors to monitor equipment health, detect defects, flag safety incidents and predict failures before they occur.
In late 2025, Nommas.ai was named the Overall Winner for the Middle East at the Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award, selected from hundreds of global competitors for its approach to cognitive AI and smart manufacturing. The award followed a deployment for Saudi Can Company, where Nommas deployed a closed-loop cognitive AI system that automated visual quality control while adding a real-time reasoning layer to explain, predict and prevent operational failures.
Saudi Arabia's growing tech footprint
The dual recognition comes as Saudi Arabia accelerates investment in its domestic technology sector. The WEF noted in its 2026 cohort announcement that the Middle East and other emerging regions are expanding their presence in frontier innovation, with the cohort reflecting deep tech's spread beyond its traditional hubs.
