AI in Oman

Oman's Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion (MoCIIP) has confirmed that the National E-Commerce Plan 2022-2027 reached 86.7% completion by the end of 2025, with 26 of its 30 planned initiatives now delivered. According to Oman Observer, four additional initiatives were completed in the second half of 2025 alone, pushing the plan from 22 to 26 finished items with roughly a year and a half left on the clock.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• 86.7% of the National E-Commerce Plan is complete, with 26 of 30 initiatives finished
• 19,260 licensed e-commerce activities now exist in Oman, backed by 412 verified stores on the Maroof Oman trust platform
• Three flagship initiatives remain: the Makin digital skills programme, a national addressing system, and an electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) system
• A 2023 ministerial decision already underpins consumer and merchant protection for online trade
• The plan is explicitly tied to Vision 2040's digital economy and competitiveness goals

📊 The Numbers Behind the Progress

The National E-Commerce Plan was launched in 2022 as a five-year roadmap running through 2027, built around five pillars: updated legislation, digital services, electronic payments, logistics, and consumer awareness. As Times of Oman reported, the plan's 86.7% completion rate as of end-2025 puts it firmly on track, with the ministry committing to finish the remaining initiatives by the 2027 deadline.

Nasra bint Sultan Al Habsi, Director General of Trade at MoCIIP, described the plan's purpose directly:

The four initiatives completed in the second half of 2025, as detailed by Muscat Daily, were: electronic payment awareness campaigns, a review and approval of electronic payment transaction fees, wider e-commerce awareness programs, and the integration of e-commerce concepts into school curricula. That last point signals the ministry is thinking beyond merchants and payments infrastructure toward building digital commerce literacy into the education system itself.

🛒 Maroof Oman: Building Trust in Online Shopping

One of the plan's most visible outputs is the Maroof Oman platform, a verification tool that lets shoppers check whether an online seller holds an official license before they buy. Per Muscat Daily and Oman Observer, the platform verified 412 online stores between February 2024 and August 2026, while the broader count of licensed e-commerce activities in the Sultanate has climbed to 19,260.

That gap between total licensed e-commerce activities (19,260) and platform-verified stores (412) illustrates both the scale of Oman's informal online retail sector and how much work remains to bring smaller sellers into a fully trusted, verifiable digital marketplace. It is exactly the kind of governance layer that Vision 2040 planners have flagged as necessary before e-commerce can meaningfully scale toward the target of contributing 10% of GDP through the digital economy, a goal outlined in MTCIT's 2026-2030 Digital Economy Roadmap.

⚖️ The Legal Backbone: Ministerial Decision 499/2023

Underpinning all of this is the Governance Regulation for Electronic Commerce, issued under Ministerial Decision No. 499/2023. According to both Oman Observer and Times of Oman, the regulation establishes frameworks for consumer rights protection, merchant safeguards, and pathways for SMEs to expand into digital channels. Without this legal scaffolding, initiatives like Maroof Oman verification and electronic payment fee reform would have far less enforcement weight behind them.

🚧 What's Left Before 2027

Three initiatives stand out among the remaining four on the ministry's list, and each has a clear technology dimension:

• Makin (National Digital Skills Programme): aimed at building the workforce capacity needed to sustain a digital economy, complementing broader Omanisation and upskilling efforts already underway in the tech sector.
• National Addressing System: a foundational logistics layer that has held back e-commerce delivery reliability in Gulf markets generally; solving it in Oman would directly support last-mile fulfillment for online sellers.
• Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC): a digital identity verification system that would streamline onboarding for online payments, banking-linked commerce, and merchant registration alike.

Each of these initiatives touches infrastructure that other parts of Oman's tech ecosystem depend on. A working national addressing system, for instance, would benefit the logistics tech startups and fintechs the Sultanate has been actively courting through programs like the one covered in AI in Oman's coverage of the Sas for Excellence fund, which channels direct financing to local tech firms building exactly these kinds of digital services.

🎯 Connection to Vision 2040

Both Oman Observer and Times of Oman explicitly frame the National E-Commerce Plan as aligned with Vision 2040's digital transformation and economic diversification pillars. E-commerce is one of the more measurable proxies for how well Oman is executing on its broader ambition to reduce oil dependency and grow non-oil digital sectors. For readers tracking Oman's national scorecard beyond headline announcements, the sister publication omanvision2040.com recently catalogued several under-the-radar Vision 2040 deliverables from the past year, and this e-commerce progress report fits the same pattern of steady, incremental execution rather than splashy one-off announcements.

💼 Impact on Oman's Economy and Startup Ecosystem

For Omani entrepreneurs and SMEs, the practical upside of these initiatives is straightforward: lower friction for setting up and operating an online storefront, more trustworthy payment rails, and (once the addressing system and eKYC are live) faster onboarding and delivery. The e-commerce plan doesn't generate the same headlines as a nine-figure AI investment, but it is arguably more consequential for the thousands of small merchants and digital-first businesses that make up the bulk of Oman's private sector employment base.

It also complements the wave of local SaaS and fintech activity the Sultanate has seen this year, from accounting and payroll tools built for Omanisation compliance to invoicing platforms preparing for e-invoicing mandates. A more reliable digital commerce backbone, backed by verified identity and addressing systems, is the kind of unglamorous infrastructure that makes all of that downstream innovation easier to build on.

🇴🇲 Why This Matters for Oman

Vision 2040 sets an ambitious target for the digital economy's share of GDP, and e-commerce is one of the most direct, measurable channels through which ordinary Omani businesses can participate in that growth. Reaching 86.7% completion on a five-year plan with 18 months still on the clock is a credible sign of execution, not just intention. The remaining three initiatives, digital skills, national addressing, and eKYC, are foundational rather than cosmetic: they are the plumbing that determines whether Oman's next generation of online retailers, delivery startups, and digital-first SMEs can operate at regional scale. As the ministry pushes toward 2027, how quickly it closes these final gaps will say a lot about Oman's readiness to compete with more digitally mature Gulf neighbors on e-commerce infrastructure.

From a drone-and-AI startup hunting for its next Chief Technology Officer to a Muscat pricing-tech company scaling its data team after a record pre-seed round, Oman's AI and tech job market has real openings right now. Here are nine roles worth applying to this August.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Nine active AI, data, and tech roles found across Muscat employers and remote-friendly platforms as of early August 2026.
• Omani AI startups Sampo AI and ESBAAR are both hiring, a sign the local ecosystem is scaling beyond founding teams.
• Freelance/remote AI training gigs via Mindrift pay $15 to $100+ an hour and are open to Oman-based applicants with no relocation needed.
• Most listings, as usual in Oman, do not disclose salary; one Indeed listing showed a figure that appears to be a data error rather than a real monthly wage.
• Tip: Salaries marked "Not disclosed" are common in Oman. Apply and negotiate directly.

💼 The 9 Roles Open Right Now

We pulled live and recently posted listings from Indeed Oman, Bayt.com, GulfTalent, and LinkedIn, then cross-checked company details. As always, roles requiring AI/data skills specifically and broader tech roles at AI-focused companies are both included.

*One Indeed Oman listing displayed an implausible monthly figure for this role, likely a currency or data-parsing error on the platform. Treat it as undisclosed and confirm directly with the employer.

🚀 Why Two Omani AI Startups Are on This List

The most interesting signal this month is not a multinational hiring push, it is two homegrown AI companies expanding their teams at the same time. Sampo AI, the Muscat-based dynamic-pricing startup we profiled in Sampo AI: Inside Oman's Record-Breaking Pricing SaaS, closed a $750,000 pre-seed round in January 2025, the largest of its kind in the Sultanate at the time, according to Wamda. Its founder Saif Al-Essai's path to building the company is covered in our earlier profile of his two prior exits. Now Sampo AI is hiring for data analyst and IT support roles, a sign it is moving from founder-led operations to a proper team.

ESBAAR, meanwhile, is a Muscat-founded drone and AI company that has spent years building computer vision and autonomous inspection tools for the oil and gas sector. It is now searching for a Chief Technology Officer to help set its next phase of technology strategy.

🌍 Remote AI Training Gigs Are an Easy Entry Point

If you have a data science, statistics, or software background but are not ready for a full-time move, Mindrift's freelance AI training roles are worth a look. The platform pays freelance experts to write prompts, evaluate model outputs, and build training data for large language models, with compensation reported between $15 and $100+ per hour depending on project complexity. These roles do not require relocation and are listed for Oman on Bayt.com, making them one of the lowest-friction ways to get paid AI experience while based in Muscat or elsewhere in the country.

📋 What Employers Are Actually Asking For

• Python remains the baseline across almost every listing, from Sampo AI's data roles to Mindrift's freelance gigs.
• SQL and database fluency shows up in both entry-level data analyst postings and senior data scientist roles.
• Leadership-track roles (the two CTO postings) want candidates who can bridge cloud infrastructure, AI product strategy, and direct reporting to a CEO or advisory board, not just technical depth.
• Teaching and training roles, like the AI and Robotics Trainer position, reflect growing demand for AI literacy programs aimed at school-age students in Oman.

If none of these nine match your background, our earlier roundup of 11 AI & Tech Jobs Hiring in Oman Right Now (June 2026) is worth revisiting, since several of those listings may still be accepting late applications, and it shows how quickly Oman's hiring pipeline in this sector has been turning over.

🇴🇲 Why This Matters for Oman

Every one of these roles, whether at a homegrown startup like Sampo AI or ESBAAR, a Big Four firm like EY, or a remote AI-training platform, points to the same underlying trend: Oman's Vision 2040 push for economic diversification needs a workforce that can build and operate AI systems, not just consume them. As the Sultanate accelerates parallel infrastructure pushes, including the logistics buildout our sister site detailed in its $4.2 billion logistics project roundup, the demand for local data, automation, and cybersecurity talent will only grow. For jobseekers in Muscat, the message this month is simple: apply now, negotiate on salary since most listings will not state one upfront, and do not overlook flexible remote AI-training work as a way to build a portfolio while a full-time role comes through.