Spending on artificial intelligence by businesses using Pemo’s expense management platform rose about fivefold in the third quarter from a year earlier, while advertising expenditure fell by a third, according to the company’s first SME Spend Index.
The index, based on nearly 3.5 million anonymized, settled card transactions worth nearly 2 billion dirhams ($544.5 million) between October 2025 and September 2026, found that 29% of businesses paid for at least one AI tool in the third quarter. The typical monthly expenditure among businesses paying for AI was 268 dirhams.
AI was the fastest-growing spending category, while total card expenditure rose 9% year on year. Spending on utilities increased by a third, while software expenditure grew 19%.
AI accounted for about 1% of total card spending but roughly a quarter of software expenditure, the index found. Businesses using the platform were more likely to pay for AI tools than hotel stays or flights.
Technology companies led adoption, with 50% paying for AI tools and a median monthly expenditure of 880 dirhams. Marketing agencies followed, with 46% paying for AI, while AI spending accounted for 6% of their card expenditure, compared with 5% for technology companies.
The index also found that 38% of real estate businesses and 35% of professional services firms paid for AI tools. Adoption was lower in construction and hospitality, at 17% and 16%, respectively.
Anthropic, the maker of Claude, was the largest AI provider by spending in most sectors. OpenAI, which develops ChatGPT, led in media, events, healthcare and construction, according to the index.
Ayham Gorani, co-founder and chief executive of Pemo, said the findings showed AI had become a budget item for a growing number of businesses as they reconsidered spending priorities.
Pemo said it would publish the index quarterly, with the next edition, covering the fourth quarter of 2026, planned for January 2027.
The company cautioned that the findings reflected spending by its own customers and were not representative of all small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE. Its AI figures also excluded tools embedded in Microsoft and Google software suites.
