Artificial Intelligence has moved from being a technology conversation to a business conversation. In Pakistan, however, I believe we need to ask a more practical question: Are our businesses actually ready to use AI, or are we simply excited about having access to it for free?
There is a difference.
Today, a small business owner can use AI to write proposals, analyse customer feedback, prepare marketing content, automate routine communication, generate sales or other business reports, and even support decision making. A professional can use it to research faster, learn new skills, and perform work that previously required several hours.
But AI itself is not the transformation. The transformation happens when AI is connected to better processes, better people, and better decisions.
Pakistan has a significant economic reason to take this seriously. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26, ICT export remittances increased by 19.7% to US$3.38 billion during July-March FY2026 (Source: https://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapter_26/15_Information_Technology.pdf) , compared with US$2.83 billion during the same period a year earlier. Technology is already generating foreign exchange for Pakistan; AI could potentially increase the value of that digital economy if businesses learn to use it productively.
The opportunity is particularly important for our small and medium sized businesses.
A Pakistani SME does not necessarily need an expensive AI department. It may need something much simpler: a system that captures customer enquiries, organises leads, follows up automatically, analyses sales data, prepares management reports and helps employees complete repetitive work faster.
Imagine a distributor who still manages orders through WhatsApp messages and scattered spreadsheets. AI cannot magically solve that company’s operational problem. But if the company first creates a structured sales process, centralises its data, and then applies AI to that system, the technology becomes useful.
This is where I believe Pakistan’s AI conversation needs to mature.
We should stop asking, “Which AI tool should I use?” and start asking, “Which business problem should I solve?”
The distinction matters.
The World Bank’s 2026 World Development Report argues that developing economies do not need to build trillion dollar AI models to benefit from artificial intelligence. (Source: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2026) They can begin by adopting existing tools and adapting them to local languages, institutions, data and development needs. It also highlights four foundations: connectivity, compute, context and competency.
For Pakistan, this is particularly relevant.
Our competitive advantage may not come from building the next global foundation model. It may come from becoming exceptionally good at applying AI to Pakistani problems.
Agriculture. Healthcare. Education. Banking. Retail. Logistics. Export services. Government administration. Manufacturing. Professional services.
There is another important economic dimension: employment.
AI will change jobs, but the simplistic argument that “AI will take everyone’s jobs” is not particularly useful. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers expect both technological and human capabilities to become increasingly important. AI and big data are among the fastest growing skills, while analytical thinking, creativity, resilience, leadership, and collaboration remain important.
For Pakistan, this means our objective should not simply be to produce more people who know how to write prompts.
We need people who understand business and AI together.
A marketing professional should know how AI can improve customer acquisition without compromising brand quality. An accountant should understand how automation can reduce repetitive reporting while maintaining controls. An HR professional should know how AI can support recruitment and workforce planning while protecting privacy and fairness.
This is also why Pakistan’s National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2025 is significant. The policy frames AI as part of the country’s transition towards a knowledge-based economy and emphasises adoption, skills, innovation and responsible use.
The government has also announced large scale AI skills initiatives, including a target to upskill one million non IT professionals.
But policy alone will not create an AI economy.
Businesses have to change how they work.
That means documenting processes before automating them.
= Cleaning and organising data before asking AI to analyse it. Training employees instead of simply buying software.
= Creating clear rules for confidential information.
= Measuring whether an AI implementation actually saves time, reduces cost, increases revenue or improves customer experience.
Pakistan is already moving rapidly towards a more digital economy. During January-March 2026, digital channels accounted for 92% of retail payment transactions by volume, while more than 2.6 million merchants had been onboarded or registered on Raast P2M.
The infrastructure for a digital economy is therefore expanding.
The next challenge is digital intelligence.
My view is simple: Pakistan should not approach AI as another fashionable technology cycle. We should approach it as an economic productivity tool.
The businesses that benefit will not necessarily be the ones buying the most sophisticated software. They will be the ones that understand their problems clearly, redesign their processes intelligently, and teach their people to work alongside technology.
“AI will not fix a badly managed business.”
But a well organised business, with competent people, clean data and practical systems, can use AI to become faster, leaner and more competitive.
That is where the real opportunity for Pakistan lies, not in merely consuming AI, but in turning intelligence into productivity, productivity into competitiveness, and competitiveness into economic value.
