Best AI tools in the UAE:
2026 Market Report

32.9%
Category Adoption Rate
Claude
ChatGPT
Cursor
Fireflies
Perplexity
GitHub Copilot
Summary
·
Claude went from fringe to first in a year. Its share of AI buyers jumped from 15.2% to 81.8%, a 66.6 percentage point gain, and 92.6% of its current customers are buying it for the first time.
·
ChatGPT didn't lose anything to get overtaken. It still grew, from 73.9% to 78.9% of AI buyers, which means most companies now pay for both rather than picking one.
·
Category adoption rose from 30.2% to 32.9% of active businesses, and the number of UAE companies paying for AI more than doubled.
·
Behind the two big assistants, the field gets thin fast. Cursor is the only other tool above 10%, and everything after it sits in single digits.

What is the most popular
AI tool?

Claude is the most popular AI tool among UAE businesses, used by 81.8% of companies that pay for any AI tool. We ranked vendors by adoption rate: the share of AI-buying businesses that paid each vendor over the trailing 12 months.
Adoption rate
Prior adoption rate
Growth
New adopter rate
Claude
Performance snapshot
Adoption rate
Prior adoption rate
Growth
New adopter rate
ChatGPT
Performance snapshot
Adoption rate
Prior adoption rate
Growth
New adopter rate
Cursor
Performance snapshot
Adoption rate
Prior adoption rate
Growth
New adopter rate
Fireflies
Performance snapshot
Adoption rate
Prior adoption rate
Growth
New adopter rate
Perplexity
Performance snapshot
Adoption rate
Prior adoption rate
Growth
New adopter rate
GitHub Copilot
Performance snapshot

AI adoption rises with team size

More than half of enterprises on Alaan pay for an AI tool, compared with 3.1% of startups. We segmented 7,000+ businesses on Alaan by team size and measured how many pay for AI, then ranked vendors within each segment.
Startups
1-3 users
3.1%
AI adoption rate
01
Claude (2.5%)
02
ChatGPT (2.4%)
03
Cursor (0.5%)
04
Fireflies (0.1%)
05
Perplexity (0.1%)
06
GitHub Copilot (0.0%)
Small businesses
4-10 users
21.1%
AI adoption rate
01
Claude (16.3%)
02
ChatGPT (15.9%)
03
Cursor (2.1%)
04
Fireflies (1.1%)
05
Perplexity (0.3%)
06
GitHub Copilot (0.1%)
Mid-market
11-30 users
39.9%
AI adoption rate
01
Claude (33.7%)
02
ChatGPT (32.0%)
03
Cursor (5.4%)
04
Fireflies (2.0%)
05
Perplexity (0.3%)
06
GitHub Copilot (0.2%)
Enterprise
30+ users
54.8%
AI adoption rate
01
Claude (47.5%)
02
ChatGPT (47.1%)
03
Cursor (10.5%)
04
Fireflies (3.5%)
05
Perplexity (1.3%)
06
GitHub Copilot (1.0%)

Key findings

01
Claude had the biggest year of any tool in the category. Its adoption rate rose 66.6 percentage points, from 15.2% to 81.8%. With a 92.6% new adopter rate, nearly all of that came from companies buying Claude for the first time.
02
Most AI buyers now pay for both Claude and ChatGPT. Claude reaches 81.8% of AI buyers and ChatGPT reaches 78.9%, so at least 60.7% pay for both. For most teams, the choice between the two turned out to be both.
03
ChatGPT is still growing, it just has company now. Its adoption rate went from 73.9% to 78.9%, and 61.8% of its current customers are new to it.
04
Specialist tools are growing, slowly. Cursor (+2.2pp) and Fireflies (+0.5pp) each picked up share, with roughly two thirds of their customers buying for the first time. Perplexity appeared from nothing: it now reaches 1.5% of AI buyers, all of them first-time customers.
05
Company size is the strongest predictor of AI spend. 54.8% of enterprises pay for AI, against 39.9% of mid-market companies, 21.1% of small businesses, and 3.1% of startups. Cursor shows the same pattern more sharply: 10.5% of enterprises pay for it, compared with 0.5% of startups.

Methodology Notes

01
Category Adoption Rate = ((companies buying any AI tool ÷ companies with any card transaction in the period) × 100
02
Adoption Rate =  (companies buying a specific AI tool ÷ companies buying any AI tool) × 100
03
Growth rate = current adoption rate - prior adoption rate, in percentage points
04
New adopter rate = (first-time customers for that vendor ÷ total current adopters) × 100
05
Segment adoption rate = companies in the segment buying a given tool, or any AI tool ÷ all companies in that segment with an active user) × 100
06
Current period =  3 November 2025 to 2 November 2026. Prior period is the 12 months before it.
07
Data comes from first-party spend on the Alaan platform. Tools paid for outside Alaan, or bundled into a wider contract (for example, GitHub Copilot inside a Microsoft agreement), won't appear.

FAQs

Claude, by a small margin. 81.8% of UAE businesses that pay for AI on Alaan pay for Claude, and 78.9% pay for ChatGPT. Cursor is a distant third at 13.3%.

Mostly both. At least 60.7% of AI-buying companies pay for both tools. Claude grew much faster this year (+66.6pp against +5.0pp), but ChatGPT still gained share.

Very few startups pay for AI tools yet, just 3.1% of those on Alaan. Among the ones that do, Claude (2.5% of startups) and ChatGPT (2.4%) are almost level, and Cursor is the only other tool with meaningful uptake.

Claude and ChatGPT again, close together. Claude is used by 16.3% of small businesses and 33.7% of mid-market companies, with ChatGPT within two points in both segments. Cursor is the most common third tool, at 2.1% and 5.4%.

Enterprises are the heaviest AI buyers, with 54.8% paying for at least one tool. Claude and ChatGPT are effectively tied at 47.5% and 47.1%, and enterprises are also the biggest buyers of Cursor (10.5%) and Fireflies (3.5%).

Cursor. 13.3% of AI buyers pay for it, and 67.5% of them are new this year. GitHub Copilot reaches just 0.7%, but it's often billed through GitHub or Microsoft contracts, so our data likely undercounts it.

32.9% of active businesses on Alaan paid for at least one AI tool in the last 12 months, up from 30.2% the year before. The number of companies paying for AI more than doubled over the same period.

Start with one team

You don't have to move the whole company at once. Pick one team, load a sub-wallet, issue a few cards, and see what a month of spend looks like when every transaction arrives already coded.

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من خلال النقر «قبول»، أنت توافق على تخزين ملفات تعريف الارتباط على جهازك لتحسين التنقل في الموقع وتحليل استخدام الموقع والمساعدة في جهودنا التسويقية. شاهد موقعنا سياسة الخصوصية لمزيد من المعلومات.

ارفضاقبل
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بالنقر على "قبول"، فإنك توافق على تخزين ملفات تعريف الارتباط (الكوكيز) على جهازك لتحسين تصفح الموقع، وتحليل استخدامه، ودعم جهودنا التسويقية. اطلع على سياسة الخصوصية الخاصة بنا لمزيد من المعلومات.

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عذرًا! حدث خطأ ما أثناء إرسال النموذج.
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