GCC Firms Fear Fewer AI Job Cuts, but Entry-Level Work Is Disappearing
Zeta42 · 15 September 2026
A Cooper Fitch survey finds fewer UAE and GCC firms expect AI job cuts. The bigger risk is the entry-level work that trains junior staff, and governance is lagging.
Fewer cuts, more consolidation
Businesses in the UAE and the wider GCC are much less worried that AI will cost people their jobs than they were a year ago. According to Cooper Fitch's AI & the Future of Talent 2027 report, covered by Khaleej Times on Sunday, only 14 per cent of respondents now expect AI-related role reductions within the next 12 to 24 months. In last year's survey the figure was 31 per cent.
What is happening instead is quieter. Organisations are consolidating tasks and responsibilities rather than eliminating positions outright: 22 per cent report some role consolidation already under way, and a further 41 per cent are exploring it.
Adoption has also moved on. Nearly two-thirds of respondents report AI adoption at the functional stage or beyond, up from about 19 per cent functional adoption last year, although only 8 per cent have fully embedded AI across operations. Budgets are growing in the middle of the market, with 27 per cent reporting annual AI spending of between $500,000 and $5 million, up from 19 per cent. UAE respondents were more likely to report high spending than those in Saudi Arabia, with 11 per cent citing more than $5 million a year against 3 per cent.
The missing first rung
The headline on jobs is reassuring. The detail underneath it is less so. The report's central concern is the erosion of entry-level work: research, first drafts, administrative coordination and routine data analysis. These tasks have traditionally been the training ground where junior employees build judgement and critical-thinking skills, and respondents named first-draft content, reporting, basic research, administrative coordination and routine problem-solving as the work most affected by automation.
At the other end, the new roles AI is creating, such as chief AI officer, AI governance lead and AI strategist, largely require prior experience or technical expertise. The report found few identifiable entry-level pathways into them. It frames the problem as a question:
“If future leaders have fewer opportunities to develop judgement through independent problem-solving, will the CEOs of tomorrow be distinguished by their strategic vision, or by their skill in directing AI to generate strategy?”
This is the finding employers in the region should take most seriously. A graduate who never writes a rough first draft, never builds a clumsy analysis and never has it picked apart by a manager misses the repetitions that turn into judgement. If automation removes that practice, companies will have to replace it on purpose, with structured training in which junior staff use AI on real tasks and learn to challenge what it produces.
Governance, and a gap in the room
The survey also shows adoption running ahead of the rules. Fifty-seven per cent of organisations have no formal AI governance framework, or only an informal, evolving one. Among GCC regional companies the figure rises to 81 per cent. Just 10 per cent of GCC respondents report fully established governance, even though 97 per cent report some level of adoption. Data privacy and regulatory risk is the leading barrier to progress, cited by 44 per cent of GCC regional respondents and 45 per cent of multinationals.
Leaders and staff also see different results. Thirty-one per cent of executives said AI has exceeded expectations, against 4 per cent of heads of function. Meanwhile 41 per cent of managers and 50 per cent of individual contributors said it has fallen below expectations, compared with 19 per cent of executives. Productivity is the most commonly cited measurable benefit at every level of seniority. Revenue growth linked to AI was identified by only 4 per cent.
One figure offers some comfort: around 65 per cent of respondents said AI outputs are always reviewed before use. Review is only as good as the person doing it, though. For Zeta42, that is the practical message of this report for UAE professionals and the companies that employ them. Using AI well now includes knowing when its output is wrong, and organisations that no longer give juniors the old training ground need to build them a new one.
Source: khaleejtimes.com
