Khalid Murshed, CEO of e& enterprise, outlines a playbook for AI that prioritises sovereignty, trust and more everyday impact

Published: Wed 15 Oct 2025, 7:00 AM

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Artificial intelligence has become the defining force of digital transformation. Yet for Khalid Murshed , CEO of e& enterprise , the digital transformation arm of global technology group e&, AI's true value is not measured in technical sophistication alone, but in the impact it delivers for governments, economies, and everyday lives.

He describes AI, supported by cloud and cybersecurity, as the digital spine powering the region's progress, invisible yet vital, enabling smarter governments, stronger economies, and services designed around citizens.

“I ask my teams to show me the citizen outcome before we debate the model. AI for more impact is not about technology for its own sake, it is about outcomes that improve lives.”

Across the Middle East, governments are moving beyond digitalisation into a new era of AI-enabled governance. Predictive traffic optimisation systems are reducing commute times, AI diagnostics are improving healthcare outcomes, and digital identity platforms like UAE Pass are accelerating access to more than 1,000 public services.

For Murshed, these examples illustrate that AI's promise is not about automation for efficiency alone, but about public value. Under his leadership, e& enterprise has rolled out more than 200 AI use cases across sectors. These include healthcare models for early detection of diseases, AI copilots for justice systems, and smart city platforms that optimise urban mobility, lighting, and waste management.“I care about minutes saved on the commute, faster case resolution, and simple access with one identity . If people cannot feel the improvement, we missed the point. The real measure of innovation is not adoption by the few, but accessibility for the many,” he says.

As economies digitalise, the ability to scale AI securely and locally has become a competitive advantage. Sovereign cloud platforms ensure sensitive data remains within national borders, while cybersecurity acts as the guardrail that builds trust.

This philosophy anchors e& enterprise's international strategy. In Saudi Arabia, the company has aligned closely with Vision 2030, supporting ministries and enterprises with AI-ready cloud and cybersecurity solutions, while establishing in-country Security Operations Centres that enable resilience at national scale.

In Egypt, e& enterprise is building a regional cyber hub that secures critical infrastructure and supports AI adoption across North Africa. Beyond the region, the company has begun to win AI contracts in Eastern Europe, a sign that solutions developed in the Middle East can scale internationally while retaining local relevance.

Across all markets, the principle remains the same: AI innovation must be rooted in context, compliant with regulation, aligned with national priorities, and supported by local talent. For Khalid, sovereignty is not just compliance, it is capability for long-term resilience. He says,“I will not deploy where sensitive data cannot stay in-country and where we cannot prove resilience . Sovereignty is capability, not a checkbox. That is why we establish in-country security operations and align with national priorities before we scale.”

The ultimate test of AI is whether people feel its impact. e& enterprise has applied AI to utilities, creating copilots that predict outages, optimise energy grids, and improve sustainability.

For small and medium enterprises, the backbone of regional economies, the company is developing affordable, easy-to-integrate AI copilots that give smaller businesses the same digital intelligence as large enterprises. In healthcare, AI is transforming diagnostics and medical imaging, improving accuracy while expanding access to services.“SMEs should not need a data science team to benefit from AI . We are building copilots that install in a weekend, integrate with the tools businesses already use, and pay back fast in accuracy and time saved. Technology only matters if citizens can feel its impact in their daily lives,” says Khalid.

The scale of transformation ahead cannot be achieved in silos. e& enterprise treats its partnerships with AWS, Microsoft, and Meta not as vendor deals but as platforms for co-innovation.

Together, these collaborations are advancing sovereign cloud, building GenAI Centres of Excellence, and designing conversational commerce platforms that allow businesses to engage with citizens in more relevant, multilingual ways.

These collaborations are not transactional. They are shared roadmaps aligned to national priorities, designed to produce intellectual property in the region, scale sovereign capabilities, and create AI solutions that are locally relevant yet globally exportable.

Khalid says,“We don't just adopt global technologies, we shape them to reflect our region's needs and ambitions.”

With AI's rapid rise come questions of governance, security, and ethics. For Murshed, responsibility cannot be an afterthought.“In AI, speed matters, but trust is the multiplier. Without trust, even the fastest deployments will not endure.”

e& enterprise embeds governance and oversight into every project, from bias testing and explainability frameworks to sovereign data hosting and sector-specific compliance. It applies different guardrails depending on the context, from healthcare to energy to public services, recognising that each sector carries unique risks.

The company is also investing in people. Its AI Academy and Chief AI Officer Programme (by e& enterprise, with Emeritus) are equipping leaders across industries to evaluate, deploy, and govern AI responsibly. This ensures that as the technology scales, so too does the capability of people to use it wisely.

Looking ahead, Murshed's ambition is to position e& enterprise as the AI-powered digital spine of the region. Not always visible, but absolutely vital, enabling motion, coordination, and resilience across industries and economies.

By embedding AI into the fabric of government, business, and society, supported by cloud and cybersecurity, the company is building a future that is secure, inclusive, and sustainable.

And as its footprint expands across the Middle East, Africa, and now Eastern Europe, e& enterprise is exporting AI transformation models that can scale globally. From Arabic natural language processing to smart district platforms and cybersecurity hubs, its work demonstrates that the region can be a testbed for globally relevant innovation.

In Murshed's view, this is what it means to transform for impact: technology that does not just digitise processes, but shapes the future of nations, empowers citizens, and creates shared growth across societies.

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