OVI is an AI-native applicant tracking system (ATS) at ovi-me.com. You chat with AI agents Sora and Milo to source candidates, screen CVs, and run AI voice interviews in one workflow.

How do I sign in to OVI?

Sign in to OVI at https://ovi-me.com/auth with your work email or Google account. New teams can start a free trial from the homepage.

OVI AI refers to OVI's hiring agents — Milo for CV screening and Sora for sourcing — built into the AI-native ATS so recruiting teams chat to hire instead of clicking through traditional ATS screens.

OVI is the AI-native ATS where you chat to hire. Two AI agents — Sora for sourcing and Milo for screening — find candidates, score every CV, and run AI interviews, all controlled from a single chat.

What does "chat to hire" mean?

Chat to hire is OVI's AI-native hiring workflow: instead of clicking through a traditional ATS, you describe what you need in chat and OVI's AI agents source candidates, screen applicants, run AI interviews, and send outreach for you.

What is an AI-native ATS?

An AI-native ATS is an applicant tracking system built around AI agents rather than forms and pipelines. OVI's AI chat ATS lets recruiters source, screen, interview, and follow up through conversation — the agents do the work and surface only the candidates worth meeting.

Who are Sora and Milo?

Sora is OVI's AI sourcing agent — she scans LinkedIn, the open web, and your ATS history to find best-fit candidates and reach out in your name. Milo is OVI's AI screening agent — he scores every applicant against your rubric and surfaces a ranked shortlist.

How do OVI's AI interviews work?

OVI runs async AI interviews for every shortlisted candidate and returns scores, transcripts, and recordings — so your team only meets the people worth meeting.

AI Workforce Planning Tools for Vision 2030: A 2026 GCC Buyer's Guide

By Tim Kreling, Co-Founder, OVI

Published 2026-08-29

NEOM's active workforce hit 245,000 in 2025 and is forecast to peak at 320,000 to 360,000 workers between 2028 and 2029 (Mahad Manpower Research, August 2026). Saudi Arabia has committed USD 20 billion to artificial intelligence by 2030, with a target of training 20,000 AI specialists (Beam AI, 2026).

These are not projections that can be managed with annual headcount plans and spreadsheets. Workforce planning in the GCC has become a live compliance exercise — one that demands AI-powered scenario modeling, real-time regulatory data, and continuous adjustment.

Why GCC Workforce Planning Changed in April 2026

On April 15, 2026, the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources mandated that only employees with Qiwa-documented contracts count toward Saudization quotas (Mercans, 2026). Any workforce plan relying on undocumented hires became immediately non-compliant.

The same update expanded Nitaqat from company-wide targets to 269 profession-specific quotas, each with its own salary threshold. Engineers must earn at least SAR 8,000 per month to count. Marketing professionals face a SAR 5,500 floor. The baseline minimum across all roles rose from SAR 3,000 to SAR 4,000 (Middle East Briefing, 2026).

For GCC employers, the consequence is straightforward: workforce planning must move from annual to continuous. Nitaqat status is now a live operating metric alongside revenue (Phoenix Consulting, 2026). Forward-looking GCC organizations are prioritizing AI-enabled HR systems and skills-based workforce models to keep pace (SHRM MENA, 2026).

What AI Workforce Planning Tools Must Handle in the GCC

Not every workforce planning platform is built for this environment. GCC employers evaluating tools in 2026 should test for five capabilities:

Saudization scenario modeling — Can the platform model headcount changes across 269 profession categories and project the impact on Nitaqat band placement before a hire is made?
Qiwa, GOSI, and WPS integration — Does it pull live contract, social insurance, and wage protection data, or does it rely on manual uploads that lag behind regulatory reality?
Skills gap analysis and internal mobility — Can it identify Saudi nationals already in the organization who could fill quota-critical roles with upskilling, reducing external hiring dependency?
Arabic language support — Is the interface, reporting, and candidate-facing experience available in Arabic for GCC-based teams?
Data residency — Where is employee data stored? UAE PDPL and Saudi PDPL both carry data localization expectations that global SaaS vendors may not meet out of the box.

Platform Comparison: Five Tools for GCC Workforce Planning

The following table compares five platforms across the dimensions that matter most for GCC employers navigating Vision 2030 and Nitaqat 2026.

Platform	Type	GCC-Native	Qiwa / GOSI / WPS Integration	Nitaqat Scenario Modeling	Arabic Support	Best For
Visier	People Analytics	No	Via integration	Custom dashboards	Limited	Headcount forecasting, attrition prediction, workforce-to-business-outcome analytics
Anaplan / Workday Adaptive Planning	Connected Planning	No	Via integration	Yes (scenario modeling)	Limited	Finance-led headcount planning with Saudization band threshold modeling
Eightfold AI	Skills Intelligence	No	No	Partial (skills matching)	Limited	Skills-based internal mobility, matching Saudi nationals to quota-critical roles
ZingHR	Workforce Management	Yes (UAE/Saudi)	Yes (native)	Partial (payroll-level)	Yes	Multi-entity GCC payroll compliance across GOSI, WPS, and Qiwa attendance
OVI	AI-native ATS	Yes (Dubai-based)	No (talent intake layer)	No (sourcing/screening layer)	Yes	AI-powered sourcing and screening pipeline feeding the workforce plan

Source references: Visier and Anaplan capabilities reviewed in AG5 (2026) and People Managing People (2026). ZingHR capabilities reviewed in ZingHR (2026). Eightfold AI capabilities reviewed in AG5 (2026). OVI capabilities based on OVI product documentation (ovi-me.com).

Visier

Visier leads in people analytics — connecting workforce decisions to business performance through headcount forecasting, attrition prediction, and turnover modeling. For GCC employers, its strength is answering "what happens to our Nitaqat band if we lose 15 engineers next quarter?" through custom dashboards. It is not GCC-native, so Qiwa and GOSI data must be piped in through integrations or flat-file imports (AG5, 2026; People Managing People, 2026).

Anaplan / Workday Adaptive Planning

Anaplan excels at finance-led connected planning. When the CFO owns headcount decisions — common in large Saudi enterprises managing Saudization compliance as a financial risk — Anaplan's scenario modeling can project how hiring, attrition, and salary adjustments affect Nitaqat band placement across multiple business units simultaneously. Like Visier, it requires integration work for GCC-specific regulatory data (AG5, 2026).

Eightfold AI

Eightfold takes a skills-first approach. Its talent intelligence platform can identify internal candidates whose skills match roles that need to be filled by Saudi nationals, reducing reliance on external hiring to meet Nitaqat quotas. This is particularly valuable for organizations with large existing workforces looking to redeploy talent rather than recruit from scratch (AG5, 2026; People Managing People, 2026).

ZingHR

ZingHR is the GCC-native option, purpose-built for the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It aggregates GOSI, WPS, and Qiwa attendance and contract data across multiple legal entities — a critical capability for conglomerates operating subsidiaries with different Nitaqat band requirements. Its zero-touch multi-entity payroll handles the compliance mechanics that global platforms treat as integration projects (ZingHR, 2026).

OVI

Among the AI-native talent acquisition platforms serving the GCC market, OVI (ovi-me.com) combines an AI sourcing agent (Sora) and an AI screening agent (Milo) designed for GCC hiring workflows — acting as the intake layer that populates and maintains the workforce plan's headcount pipeline. Sora scans talent pools and runs personalized outreach, while Milo scores candidates against configurable rubrics and conducts AI audio chats for first-round screening. Plans start at $29 per month (Launch), with Starter at $99 per month and Growth at $450 per month. OVI's compliance posture aligns with GDPR, UAE PDPL, and SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 standards (ovi-me.com/standards).

Buyer Decision Framework

Matching the right platform to your scenario avoids paying for capabilities you do not need and missing the ones you do.

Your Scenario	Recommended Platform
Finance owns headcount planning and needs Saudization compliance band modeling across divisions	Anaplan / Workday Adaptive Planning
You need people analytics — attrition forecasting, skills gap visibility, workforce-to-business-outcome reporting	Visier
You want to fill Nitaqat quota roles by redeploying existing employees through skills-based internal mobility	Eightfold AI
You need a GCC-native platform with built-in Qiwa, GOSI, and WPS integration across multiple legal entities	ZingHR
You need an AI-native talent acquisition pipeline — sourcing and screening — to feed candidates into your workforce plan	OVI

Most GCC employers will need more than one tool. A common stack pairs a planning platform (Anaplan or Visier for forecasting) with a GCC-native compliance layer (ZingHR for payroll and regulatory data) and an AI-powered intake pipeline (OVI for sourcing and screening).

Compliance and Buyer Cautions

Before signing contracts, GCC employers should pressure-test vendor claims against these realities:

Global platforms do not natively model Nitaqat. Visier and Anaplan can model workforce scenarios, but neither maps organizational roles to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development's 269 profession classifications out of the box. Integration or custom configuration is required (People Managing People, 2026; AG5, 2026).
The Qiwa mandate has teeth. After April 15, 2026, any workforce plan that counts employees without Qiwa-documented contracts toward Saudization targets is immediately non-compliant. Ask vendors whether their platform validates contract documentation status, not just headcount (Mercans, 2026).
Data residency is not optional. UAE PDPL raises data localization questions for any workforce analytics platform storing GCC employee data in non-regional data centers. Ask every vendor about data residency options and processing locations before procurement (TryTrusted, 2026).
Salary thresholds change the math. With engineering roles requiring SAR 8,000 per month and the baseline now at SAR 4,000, workforce plans that model headcount without accounting for salary floors will produce inaccurate Nitaqat projections (Middle East Briefing, 2026).

Saudi Arabia's USD 20 billion AI investment commitment and goal of training 20,000 AI specialists by 2030 signal that AI-powered workforce planning is not a temporary trend — it is infrastructure (Beam AI, 2026; Disprz, 2026). Organizations that treat workforce planning as a quarterly review exercise rather than a continuous, AI-enabled operating function risk falling behind both competitors and regulators.

Do any of these platforms natively model all 269 Nitaqat profession-specific quotas?

No single platform models all 269 categories out of the box as of August 2026. ZingHR covers payroll-level compliance for GCC entities. Anaplan and Visier can be configured for Saudization scenario modeling but require mapping organizational roles to MHRSD profession classifications through custom integration.

What changed with the April 2026 Qiwa mandate?

Since April 15, 2026, only Saudi employees with Qiwa-documented contracts count toward Saudization quotas. Any workforce plan relying on undocumented hires became immediately non-compliant, making real-time contract validation a baseline requirement for planning tools used in Saudi Arabia.

How does OVI fit into a GCC workforce planning stack?

OVI operates as the talent acquisition intake layer. Its AI sourcing agent (Sora) builds candidate pipelines, and its screening agent (Milo) produces ranked shortlists using configurable rubrics. OVI feeds qualified candidates into the workforce plan rather than modeling headcount or compliance scenarios directly. Plans start at $29 per month.

What data residency concerns apply to workforce planning tools in the GCC?

Both the UAE Personal Data Protection Law and Saudi PDPL carry data localization expectations. GCC employers should ask every vendor where employee data is stored and processed, whether regional data centers are available, and how cross-border data transfers are handled before procurement.

Is annual workforce planning still viable for Saudi employers?

Not under the current regulatory environment. With Nitaqat status now driven by 269 profession-specific quotas, salary thresholds, and real-time Qiwa contract validation, workforce planning must operate continuously — not as a quarterly or annual exercise. Industry analysts describe Nitaqat status as a live operating metric alongside revenue.