Abiel Ghezae was born in Saudi Arabia, raised in the UK, and lived in the Kingdom again between 2014 and 2018.
When he began preparing to relocate back in 2026, he found that despite how much the country had changed, he found the relocation process as chaotic as ever: one answer in a Facebook group, another on WhatsApp, another through a recruiter, another on a government website, with the rest left to word of mouth. Housing, schools, jobs, banking, neighbourhoods, documentation and the basic questions of day-to-day life all sat in different places with no single source tying them together.
What struck him wasn’t a lack of information but a lack of trust, context and navigation, which raised an obvious question: why wasn’t there one intelligent platform that understood who someone was, why they were moving and what they actually needed, then guided them through the whole journey? That question became Ahlan.
We chatted to Abiel to find out more about how AI is being used to personalise relocation at scale, what he’s learned from Ahlan’s early beta users, and his ambitions for the platform beyond the UK-Saudi corridor.
2. For those unfamiliar with the company, what exactly does Ahlan do, and how does the platform simplify the relocation and settlement process for users?
Ahlan is an AI-powered global mobility and settlement platform, starting in Saudi Arabia.
The aim is to bring the whole relocation journey into one place. Users can get personalised guidance through Ask Ahlan, explore where to live, compare schools, discover jobs, access trusted providers, use personalised settlement checklists and connect with communities and local events.
Importantly, we’re also building transactional capability into the platform. Users will be able to book events, arrange short- and long-stay accommodation, make school enquiries and bookings and apply for jobs directly through Ahlan.
So rather than simply telling someone what they need to do, Ahlan is being built to help them actually complete the journey. The long-term idea is simple: someone should be able to go from “I’m considering moving to Saudi Arabia” to “I’m settled and thriving here” through one connected platform.
3. You describe Ahlan as an AI-powered global mobility and settlement platform. How is AI being used in practice, and what problems does it solve that traditional relocation services struggle with?
AI allows us to personalise relocation at scale. Instead of simply answering generic questions, Ahlan can understand the user’s circumstances and help guide them toward the most relevant options across housing, schools, jobs, services and local life.
For example, rather than someone asking “What are the best areas in Riyadh?”, Ahlan can eventually understand that they’re moving with children, working in a certain part of the city, have a particular budget and want to be close to a specific type of school.
That completely changes the usefulness of the answer. As the platform develops, that intelligence will sit alongside transactional features. So a user could receive personalised housing recommendations and then book short or long-term accommodation, discover a suitable school and progress that journey or identify a relevant job and apply through the Platform.
That combination of personalised intelligence and action is really important. Traditional relocation services are often manual and fragmented. Ahlan is being designed to connect guidance directly to the next step.
4. Saudi Arabia is undergoing significant economic and social transformation. How have these changes influenced demand for services like Ahlan?
The transformation in Saudi Arabia is a major part of why the timing is so interesting. The country is attracting international companies, investors, entrepreneurs, skilled professionals, educators and families on a scale that is very different from when I previously lived there.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia itself is changing quickly. New industries are growing, cities are developing, tourism is expanding and the lifestyle proposition for international residents is very different from even a decade ago. That creates a huge amount of opportunity, but it also creates complexity for someone who has never lived there.
The more international talent Saudi Arabia attracts, the more important the settlement experience becomes. Recruiting somebody is only the first step. They still need to understand where to live, where their children should go to school, how daily life works, how to build a community and how to navigate the country confidently. That’s the gap Ahlan is trying to address.
5. What are some of the biggest challenges international professionals and families face when moving to Saudi Arabia, and which misconceptions about relocating to the Kingdom do you encounter most often?
One of the biggest challenges is simply knowing what to trust. People receive conflicting advice from social media, friends, recruiters and online searches. And relocation decisions are highly personal, so what works for one person may be completely unsuitable for
another.
For families, schools and housing are usually major concerns. Professionals want to understand salaries, commute, neighbourhoods and career opportunities. Others worry about banking, documentation, healthcare, social life or simply what daily life will actually feel like.
There are also still a lot of outdated perceptions of Saudi Arabia. People who have never visited sometimes have an image of the country that’s years behind reality. When they arrive, many are surprised by how rapidly Riyadh and other cities have developed, the scale of international investment, the number of events and restaurants and how much the social environment has evolved.
That said, I think it’s important not to oversell relocation either. Every country has practical challenges. Ahlan’s role isn’t to market a fantasy. It’s to give people enough trusted information to make informed decisions and settle successfully.
6. Ahlan is currently live in beta with more than 350 users and 11 signed pilots. What have you learned from those early users, and how has their feedback shaped the platform?
The biggest lesson has been that people want more than information. They want a platform that helps them act on it.
Early behaviour has shown strong interest in jobs and careers, housing, schools, community and personalised guidance. That’s reinforced our decision to build deeper functionality around those areas.
We’re therefore developing Ahlan so users can move from discovery into action, including applying for jobs, booking events, arranging short- and long-stay accommodation and progressing school enquiries and bookings. We’re also adding employer profiles, because a large proportion of international mobility starts with employment. That allows us to connect employers, candidates and the wider settlement journey much more naturally.
The pilots are equally important because they allow us to test how schools, employers and service providers can participate in the ecosystem rather than Ahlan trying to provide every underlying service itself.
7. You’re building for both individual users and organisations such as employers and schools. How do those different customer groups fit into Ahlan’s long-term vision?
They’re really two sides of the same ecosystem. For an individual, Ahlan should feel like a personalised relocation and settlement companion. For an employer, we’re building dedicated employer profiles and an organisation layer that can support international recruitment, onboarding and settlement.
An employer could showcase its organisation and opportunities, receive job applications through Ahlan, and then support successful international hires through the same platform once they are relocating.
The employee and their family could then use Ahlan for housing, schools, local services, events, community and ongoing guidance. That creates a much more complete journey: discover an opportunity, apply for the job, relocate, find somewhere to live, arrange schooling and settle into the country – all through one connected platform.
For schools and other organisations, there’s a similar logic. They can have a structured presence within the platform, connect with high-intent relocating users and become part of the wider settlement journey. Long term, I think that combination of B2C and B2B2C is central to the model.
8. Looking ahead, what are your ambitions for Ahlan over the next few years, and do you see the platform expanding beyond the UK-Saudi corridor into other international relocation markets?
Absolutely. Saudi Arabia is where we’re starting, and I think it’s the right market in which to prove the model because of the scale of international talent coming into the Kingdom and the pace of transformation taking place. But the problem Ahlan is solving is global.
Every international move involves the same challenge: somebody is leaving one system they understand and entering another one they don’t. Our ambition is for Ahlan to become the trusted operating system for global mobility. The UK-Saudi corridor gives us a focused place to validate the product, partnerships and commercial model. From there, we can expand into other corridors and eventually other markets where international professionals, families, students and organisations face the same fragmented settlement experience.
The goal is for Ahlan to become more than a source of information. It should become the place where people can discover, decide and take action across the entire relocation journey.
The name Ahlan means “welcome”, and that’s ultimately what we want the platform to represent. Wherever somebody is moving, they should be able to move, settle and thrive with confidence.
