Cosmopolitan The Daily will host a five-day executive training program in Riyadh aimed at helping Saudi banking leaders understand and apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in regulated, real-world environments.
AI-Powered Banking Mastery: Transform Your Financial Institution with Machine Learning will run April 26–30, 2026 (Sunday–Thursday) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with an in-person format and a virtual attendance option.
- Dates: April 26–30, 2026 (Sunday–Thursday)
- Time: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM daily (35 contact hours + networking/labs)
- Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (premium conference venue details to be confirmed upon registration)
- Format: In-person with virtual option
Focus: practical AI adoption for Saudi banking
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 agenda has accelerated digital transformation across financial services, while regulators and boards continue to emphasize governance, explainability, and risk controls. The program is designed to connect AI strategy with implementation priorities relevant to Saudi banks.
Key themes include:
- AI and ML fundamentals for non-technical banking leaders
- High-impact AI use cases across customer experience, lending, operations, and risk
- Fraud detection and transaction monitoring
- KYC/AML automation and compliance-led deployment
- Arabic-language automation and conversational AI
- Vendor evaluation and implementation roadmaps
- Responsible AI, governance, and organizational readiness
Who the program is for
The Riyadh cohort is designed for senior professionals across banking functions, including:
- Bank executives and senior managers
- Chief Digital Officers and innovation leads
- IT directors and technology managers
- Risk management and compliance professionals
- Customer experience leaders
- Product development and digital transformation teams
Prerequisites: 5+ years of banking/financial services experience. No coding background is required. Participants should bring a laptop for hands-on exercises.
What participants will take away
According to the program outline, participants will leave with a clearer framework for identifying and prioritizing AI initiatives, assessing vendors, and building internal alignment for implementation.
By the end of the training, participants are expected to be able to:
- Map AI opportunities to business priorities and operational constraints
- Evaluate AI solutions and vendors for banking use cases
- Design AI-enabled customer experiences for Arabic-speaking markets
- Strengthen fraud detection and AML monitoring using ML approaches
- Build business cases for AI investments with ROI logic
- Understand governance, ethics, and responsible AI considerations
- Develop a 90-day action plan for internal execution
Program structure (high-level)
The five-day agenda is structured around foundations, applied banking use cases, and implementation planning.
- Day 1: AI foundations for banking leaders; use-case mapping; governance overview
- Day 2: AI agents, RPA + AI, Arabic NLP, and customer experience automation
- Day 3: Fraud detection, AML/KYC automation, credit risk, and cybersecurity applications
- Day 4: Data readiness, vendor selection, implementation roadmaps, and change management
- Day 5: Responsible AI and governance; Vision 2030 context; capstone 90-day action plan
Materials and certification
Participants will receive training materials including toolkits and templates intended for internal reuse (vendor evaluation criteria, compliance checklists, and business case frameworks). The program also includes an assessment component and a certificate of completion for participants who meet the requirements.
Registration
For registration and cohort details, email [email protected]
The Riyadh cohort is limited to 25 participants to support workshops, labs, and peer discussion.
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