Roshn Group & Enhance Ventures: AI Meets Real Estate: Hype or Real Value

Organizational Scope and Strategic Mandate

• Roshan operates as Saudi Arabia's largest real estate giga-project, aiming to construct 400,000 housing units across seven regions within the next seven years.
• The organization is a multi-asset entity building stadiums for the FIFA World Cup and contributing to the Saudi Vision 2030 regarding quality of life and home ownership.
• Sustainability is a core pillar, with a mandate to plant 1 billion trees globally, achieved by acquiring farms and integrating educational greenhouse facilities into community malls.
• Roshan is part of a broader ecosystem of hundreds of concurrent giga-projects in Saudi Arabia launched under new leadership starting in 2015.

Digital Transformation of the Buying Journey

• In 2022, Roshan launched a "Digital Sales Journey" platform creating a hybrid model for physical and remote property transactions.
• The platform enabled the sale of 6 billion SAR (approximately $2 billion USD) within two and a half years, surpassing the volume of in-person sales center visits.
• The system integrates with government digital IDs, digital signatures, and banking entities to automate due diligence and verification prior to signing.
• A recent five-month expansion incorporated Global KYC protocols to facilitate property transactions for foreign buyers under new Saudi laws.
• Users can visualize interiors, streets, and amenities (schools, mosques, gyms) on an integrated map, allowing for family and advisor consultation prior to purchase.

Artificial Intelligence Implementation and Efficiency Gains

• Land selection processes, previously taking months, have been reduced by 40% through the use of AI and GCP (Google Cloud Platform) modules to analyze Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) use cases.
• Roshan employs in-house AI agents to streamline internal operations, including one dedicated to screening over 20,000 HR CVs and another for generating marketing content and imagery.
• The company was recently awarded the distinction of being the fastest-growing and largest entity utilizing the Google Cloud Platform marketplace in the region.
• AI integration extends to future in-home furnishing solutions, currently in testing, which allow users to purchase inventory from suppliers like IKEA via the platform's 3D walkthroughs.

Innovation Sourcing via Roshan Hackathon

• The "Roshan Hackathon," launched two years ago, is the region's largest PropTech event, inviting international and regional participants to solve specific business bottlenecks.
• Last year, the initiative attracted teams from 24 countries, generating over 100 ideas and identifying nine winners whose solutions are being implemented.
• The hackathon serves as an R&D extension, bypassing internal silos to access external perspectives, including feedback from actual customers regarding purchase friction points.
• Identified bottlenecks in the sector include legacy resistance in on-site construction and sales workflows, which require specific technological interventions beyond general corporate digitization.

Demographics, CSR, and Future Outlook

• Roshan's digital-first strategy is driven by the demographic reality that over 75% of the Saudi generation is under the age of 35, necessitating high technology adoption.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives include a "Roshan Visionary" program for high school students and an internal hardware refurbishment program where used devices are fixed and donated to the market.
• The CEO projects Saudi Arabia's market growth to rival Europe's scale within the coming decade, supported by major infrastructure projects like airports and the World Cup.
• Future technology trends under consideration include AI integration with tokenization for investment democratization, though current regulatory frameworks for tokenization in Saudi Arabia remain under development.
• Roshan is preparing to launch a corporate venture capital arm, currently in the implementation phase, to further externalize innovation.
• There is a strategic focus on exporting Saudi-built PropTech solutions to global markets, facilitated by the Ministry of Communications and IT's international offices in London and the US.