Challenges of AI Adoption in the Saudi Arabian Healthcare Sector: A Comprehensive Study

This research examines the challenges of AI adoption in Saudi Arabia healthcare sector in terms of the framework defined by the Vision 2030 healthcare transformation agenda. We utilized the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology to collect and analyze data from 27 managerial-level executives tasked with AI implementation in Saudi Arabia healthcare organizations. The study identifies and prioritizes critical challenges across five main dimensions. We discuss accuracy, privacy and security, ethical barriers, interpretability, and control. By means of systematic analysis, we discovered that accuracy (with priority weight 0.50) and privacy-security concerns (0.24), are the two most important factors in determining AI adoption in Saudi Arabian healthcare. The research offers evidence-based policy recommendations and health care administrator guidelines based on Saudi Arabia’s cultural, regulatory, and technological landscape. The insights are especially important for providing guidance on incorporating AI into the Kingdom’s extensive healthcare transformation program.

@article{Batyha2026,
  title     = {Challenges of AI Adoption in the Saudi Arabian Healthcare Sector: A Comprehensive Study},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {17},
  number    = {7},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Radwan M. Batyha and Ahmed Almaghthawi and Fahad Alharbi and Suhaila Abuowaida},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2026.0170776},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2026.0170776}
}