As Saudi Arabia’s real estate sector enters a new phase of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, large-scale developments surpass digital experimentation and into day-to-day operations on construction sites.
Across the built environment, developers and contractors are rapidly adopting AI to enhance planning, optimise construction schedules and mitigate delays on complex projects.
As Saudi Arabia accelerates the delivery of giga-projects and smart cities under Vision 2030, this places unprecedented pressure on developers, consultants and contractors to meet project delivery milestones at a scale rarely seen in global real estate markets.
For Matthew Marson, Managing Director at JLL EMEA, the situation is no longer about whether AI has a role in real estate, but if organisations can deploy it strategically enough to produce measurable outcomes.
JLL is currently supporting the construction of a new giga-project city in Saudi Arabia, and the development is currently in its infrastructure and early vertical construction stages.
“We’re currently supporting the construction of a new giga-project city in Saudi Arabia. The project is in its infrastructure and early vertical construction phase, and managing the schedule is a task of immense logistical intricacy.”
Matthew Marson, Managing Director, JLL EMEA
Large construction projects could be vulnerable to delays caused by supply chain disruptions, contractor dependencies and evolving site conditions. Studies have persistently illustrated that major infrastructure developments regularly experience cost overruns and schedule slippages, making accurate planning critical for both developers and governments.
In Saudi Arabia, where projects are accelerating at an exceptional speed and scale, even acute disruptions can have significant implications for budgets and project delivery timelines.
“On a project of this scale, even a minor delay in one area can create significant ripple effects, impacting timelines and budgets across the entire development.”
Matthew Marson, Managing Director, JLL EMEA
To mitigate and manage the potential risks, Matthew mentions his team is using ALICE Technologies, an AI-powered construction planning platform supported by JLL Spark, the company’s venture capital arm.
The platform runs large-scale simulations to test multiple construction situations and seeks to identify more efficient delivery strategies.
“To manage this complexity, our team is leveraging AI to optimize the construction lifecycle. Using a platform called ALICE Technologies (an investment from our venture capital fund, JLL Spark) the tool runs millions of simulations to proactively identify the most efficient and resilient delivery plan.”
Matthew Marson, Managing Director, JLL EMEA
According to ALICE Technologies, the platform could potentially reduce construction timelines by up to 17% and labour costs by up to 14%.
JLL added that comparable large-scale programs who are using the platform have recovered between 30 and 60 days of schedule time that would otherwise have been succumbed to delays.
The value of the advancement of technology emerges more clearly when a key supplier of specialised components reported a multi-week shipping delay, threatening to create a bottleneck during a key construction phase.
Under traditional project management processes, disruption of such scale could lead to weeks of manual rescheduling as teams coordinate subcontractors, revise dependencies and redistribute resources in the development.
Instead, project managers can eneter updated timeline constraints directly into the AI platform.
“Within hours, the system processed the downstream effects of the delay and generated a revised, optimised plan. This is work that would traditionally take weeks of manual effort.”
Matthew Marson, Managing Director, JLL EMEA
The system then shuffles tasks that could be completed earlier, adjusts resource allocations and updated schedules across the supply chain network.
“This allowed the project to absorb the disruption with minimal impact, turning a significant logistical challenge into a manageable, data-driven schedule adjustment.”
Matthew Marson, Managing Director, JLL EMEA
The examples mentioned reflects a wider shift in how real estate companies are approaching AI adoption. Instead of treating AI as a standalone innovation initiative, developers and consultants are increasingly streamlining it into core project planning and operational decision-making.
JLL’s research predicts that 70% of commercial real estate activities could be supported by AI by 2030. The company notes that while 82% of corporate leaders view AI strategy as critical, just 24% have implemented AI across their organisations.
For Saudi Arabia, that bridge represents both a challenge and an opportunity. As they continue to invest heavily in digital infrastructure, smart cities and large-scale urban development under Vision 2030, whose framework places economic diversification, private-sector expansion and quality-of-life improvements remain at the centre of national transformation efforts.
The areas where complexity is highest and outcomes can be directly measured is where AI will prove valuable, including construction scheduling, resource planning, predictive maintenance, asset performance and portfolio analysis.
In large-scale developments, the benefits are visible as delays and inefficiencies can rapidly scale across contractors, materials and project timelines.
AI is unlikely to replace human judgment in real estate development, but it could support project teams with faster visibility into risk and a broader range of responses when conditions shift unexpectedly.
