The Complete Guide to Using AI as a Legal Professional in Saudi Arabia in 2025

Saudi Arabia's push to make data and AI central to Vision 2030 means legal professionals can't treat AI as optional: SDAIA's National Strategy for Data & AI lays out ambitions - from building +20K AI specialists to positioning the Kingdom as a global hub - that are already reshaping rules, procurement and public-sector projects, and the regulator has followed with practical instruments such as SDAIA's generative AI guidance and the recent SDAIA personal data transfer risk assessment guidelines that force careful documentation and cross‑border checks; while formal AI laws are still evolving (see the global AI regulatory tracker for Saudi Arabia), this mix of strategy and soft law makes practical upskilling essential - courses like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp: practical AI skills for the workplace teach non‑technical prompt craft, tool use, and compliance-aware workflows that help lawyers turn regulatory risk into competitive advantage.

"We are living in a time of scientific innovation, unprecedented technology, and unlimited growth prospects. These new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, if used optimally, can spare the world from many disadvantages and can bring to the world enormous benefits." - His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Saudi Arabia's AI landscape is anchored by the Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA), the national referee for data, governance and AI strategy - home to the National Data Management Office, the National Center for AI and the National Information Center - and charged with turning the National Strategy for Data & AI into operational policy that touches procurement, public services and talent pipelines; SDAIA has published ethics principles and separate generative AI guidelines for government and the public, while sector regulators layer in rules such as the PDPL (in force from September 2023) that tighten automated processing and cross‑border data requirements.

For legal teams this matters because SDAIA has signalled global alignment as a priority - SDAIA itself pursued ISO 42001 certification (a milestone cited by governance commentators) and regulators are already using management‑system thinking to shape procurement and compliance expectations.

That mix of national strategy, practical guidance and international standards means lawyers should track SDAIA's instruments closely (see Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA) official overview) and consider ISO 42001 and the evolving PDPL/ethics stack as the baseline for risk assessments and vendor due diligence rather than optional best practice (see a practical governance guide that maps these developments).

The 2025 Saudi AI events calendar is becoming a must‑attend circuit for lawyers who want hands‑on training, cross‑border insight and real networking - programs range from compact, practitioner‑focused gatherings (the two‑day AI Legal Operations Summit aimed at teams implementing AI to speed eDiscovery and manage risk) to larger academic and policy forums in the Kingdom such as the International Conference on Legal Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Riyadh (late‑September 2025) and the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning in Dammam (December 2025), all of which mix technical workshops, regulatory panels and supplier showcases that help in‑house and firm teams map tools to PDPL and the emerging Global AI Hub Law; startups and local initiatives are part of the ecosystem too, exemplified by Qaanoon.AI's Arabic legal‑query platform which surfaced at WashU and signals rich, Saudi‑specific product demos and vendor conversations to expect at these events (see the ICLTAI listing and the Qaanoon.AI write‑up for context).

For legal professionals the upside is concrete: return from a two‑day summit with practical prompts, vendor contacts and a checklist for compliance‑minded procurement - imagine leaving with a vetted demo, a data‑transfer clause template and a new regional collaborator who can translate model outputs into Saudi law‑specific citations.

“Qaanoon.AI is an AI platform that allows users to ask legal questions and receive straightforward answers pulled directly from Saudi laws and legal documents,” said Al Juhany.

Saudi Arabia's AI and data rulebook is rapidly moving from strategy into practical obligations that every lawyer must master: the Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) is in force (effective 14 Sept 2023) and layered by Implementing Regulations that force controller registration, mandatory DPOs in many cases, strict data‑subject rights and tight cross‑border transfer rules with serious penalties for breaches (fines up to SAR 5 million and even imprisonment for unlawful disclosure of sensitive data, with courts able to double penalties for repeat offences) - see a concise national overview from DLA Piper Saudi Arabia data protection overview.

On transfers, SDAIA's new, non‑binding four‑phase risk assessment guidance makes clear that relying on safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses or Binding Corporate Rules now requires documented assessments of processing risks, recipient controls and whether a transfer could affect the Kingdom's “vital interests” (practical steps summarized in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia transfer risk assessment guidelines).

For operational teams that use generative AI or cloud vendors, SDAIA's rulepack and online repository of policies (including the PDPL, Transfer Regulations, SCCs and generative AI guidance) are the go‑to sources to map consent, DPIAs, breach‑notification timelines and ROPA duties into vendor contracts and evidence strategies - tie vendor demos and procurement checklists to documented transfer impact assessments or the work could be stopped before a single model is deployed; see SDAIA's official laws and regulations hub for the primary texts and templates.

The headline regulatory change to watch in 2025 is the CST's draft Global AI Hub Law - a bold experiment in digital jurisdiction that opened for public consultation from 14 April to 14 May 2025 and introduces “data embassies” and three hub models (Private, Extended and Virtual) that let foreign governments and service providers host data in Saudi Arabia while applying a foreign legal regime to that content; practical consequences are immediate for legal teams because bilateral agreements, Competent Authority approvals and contractual governance will now shape where data lives, which courts can issue orders, and how emergency access or termination rights operate, so planning must move beyond standard PDPL checklists to include treaty‑style negotiation points, audit and access protocols, and cross‑border enforcement playbooks.

The draft (summarised in practical detail by Clyde & Co) promises operational optionality - for example, a Virtual Hub can let a Saudi service provider host customer content under a designated foreign state's law - but also raises real governance complexity around conflicting legal regimes and regulator oversight (see the consultation overview from Middle East Briefing).

For in‑house and firm lawyers the actionable takeaway: map your contracts and compliance processes to the Hub types now, because infrastructure choices will determine legal exposure as much as model design.

The draft Global AI Hub Law, published by the Communications, Space & Technology Commission on 14 April 2025, reframes Saudi strategy from data control to legal optionality: it invites foreign states, hyperscalers and service providers to host sovereign data embassies inside the Kingdom while operating under another jurisdiction's laws, with a public consultation that ran until 14 May 2025 (CST official consultation portal for the Global AI Hub Law).

At its core the draft defines three hub models - Private Hubs (guest‑country‑run data centres with diplomatic‑style privileges), Extended Hubs (operator‑run facilities hosting guest‑country services) and Virtual Hubs (Saudi service providers hosting customer content governed by a designated foreign state) - and creates a Competent Authority and Council of Ministers approvals to manage bilateral agreements, designations and emergency interventions.

The practical consequence for lawyers is immediate: contracts, audit rights and incident playbooks must now plan for cross‑jurisdictional orders (the draft expressly permits competent foreign courts to issue binding orders over Customer Content and foresees Saudi judicial cooperation), potential Council‑led terminations, and transition windows such as the draft's 120‑day wind‑down for cancelled virtual approvals.

In short, imagine a Riyadh server rack operating legally under another capital's court order - an operational reality that makes treaty‑style negotiation points, robust termination clauses and clear regulatory mappings a must for any AI or data deployment in the Kingdom (Clyde & Co briefing on the Global AI Hub Law and Global Privacy Blog analysis of the draft Global AI Hub Law).

For Saudi legal teams the immediate market reality is practical and fast-moving: AI is already shortening research cycles, automating contract review and powering Arabic-native legal assistants, so the question is not whether to adopt but which tools and workflows to govern; homegrown platforms like Qaanoon.AI are designed to answer legal queries with Saudi law citations in Arabic, making legal research and client intake far quicker for local firms and in-house counsel (Qaanoon.AI Arabic-language legal AI platform write-up), while established eDiscovery and ML platforms (for example, Relativity) remain standard for large document reviews and privilege workflows that must be tied back to PDPL and vendor due diligence (see our roundup of essential tools and use cases).

Demand for AI talent is rising alongside national training drives - SDAIA and partners are scaling education, and industry analyses show major investment in generative AI infrastructure and workforce programs that legal teams should mirror by hiring or upskilling staff able to map model outputs to evidentiary rules and Hub Law risk models (Oliver Wyman and SDAIA generative AI roadmap for Saudi Arabia).

The practical playbook: pair Arabic-capable models with vetted vendor contracts, documented PDPL transfer assessments, and a human-in-the-loop review step - so a partner never relies on a raw model output alone but can produce a court-ready citation in minutes rather than hours, a vivid shift that changes both staffing needs and fee economics.

“Qaanoon.AI is an AI platform that allows users to ask legal questions and receive straightforward answers pulled directly from Saudi laws and legal documents,” said Al Juhany.

Operational and ethical risk in Saudi Arabia centres on data protection and auditability: generative models need vast datasets and any gap in PDPL compliance can trigger reputational harm, heavy fines (up to SAR 5 million) and - even for sensitive disclosures - criminal penalties, so teams must bake in privacy‑by‑design, DPIAs and named DPO oversight rather than treat them as optional; SDAIA's repository of laws, transfer templates and generative AI guidance provides the primary touchpoints for mapping obligations and vendor duties (SDAIA regulations and generative AI guidance (official Saudi AI policies)).

Cross‑border use of models raises its own operational trapdoors: SDAIA's transfer risk framework and the PDPL's transfer rules mean Standard Contractual Clauses or BCRs are only effective when paired with documented transfer impact assessments and minimisation of transferred fields, or deployments risk being halted before a single demo goes live.

Evidence and admissibility hinge on provable processes - maintain immutable RoPA entries, complete audit trails, human‑in‑the‑loop review and vendor logs so model outputs can be traced and explained to regulators or courts; breach reporting timelines and incident playbooks (including the PDPL's tight notification windows) must be operationalised with automated detection and notification to avoid missing statutory deadlines (Saudi PDPL compliance and breach notification requirements (OneTrust guidance)).

The bottom line: rigorous vendor due diligence, documented TIAs/DPIAs, and tamper‑proof logs turn AI from an evidentiary liability into defensible, court‑ready practice - one missing audit trail can be the difference between a production rollout and a regulatory stop order.

Contract language and vendor due diligence are the frontline defence for any Saudi legal team deploying AI: require a tailored Data Processing Agreement that maps PDPL obligations (purpose limitation, lawful basis, controller/processor duties, DSR handling and RoPA obligations) and insist on explicit sub‑processor rules, audit rights and incident timelines (PDPL breach reporting and SDAIA guidance commonly translate into 72‑hour notification windows and mandatory DPIAs/TIAs for risky processing); practical templates and starter clauses can be customised from market DPA tools designed for KSA use such as Genie AI's Saudi DPA template, while checklists summarising mandatory contract clauses and processor duties are usefully set out in regional analyses of PDPL contractual obligations.

For cross‑border work, tie any Standard Contractual Clauses or Binding Common Rules to a documented Transfer Impact Assessment and the new SDAIA Data Transfer Regulations (SCCs were published as part of the 2024 transfer rule updates), because relying on an SCC without a TIA or minimisation plan is a common operational gap that regulators will scrutinise.

Finally, bake in practical controls - technical and organisational security measures, cyber‑insurance, clear indemnities/limits of liability, and evidence artefacts (immutable logs, audit reports and annual vendor attestations) - so a partner can produce court‑ready evidence that processing followed PDPL, SDAIA and contractual paths rather than guesswork.

Stepping back, the practical path for legal teams in Saudi Arabia is clear: treat the draft Global AI Hub Law and PDPL not as distant policy but as operational constraints that reshape contracts, cross‑border workflows and incident playbooks - start by mapping where sensitive legal data sits and running Transfer Impact Assessments tied to the Hub types described in the CST/Securiti analysis (Securiti: Saudi Arabia Global AI Hub Law overview), then harden vendor DPAs, SCCs and audit rights to match PDPL obligations using a structured PDPL mapping roadmap (Securiti: PDPL compliance mapping roadmap); train a human‑in‑the‑loop roster so model outputs are court‑ready, and give key staff a repeatable, practical syllabus - courses like Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus (15-week bootcamp) teach prompt craft, tool use and compliance workflows in 15 weeks and are an efficient way to build those capabilities.

In short: document every transfer, bake TIAs/DPIAs into procurement, require immutable logs and vendor attestations, and upskill teams now - because in the hub era a single undocumented transfer or missing audit trail can stop a project cold and expose firms to PDPL enforcement.