New Way Now: ROSHN is building new ways for its customers to find and buy their homes online
23Featured in this interview: From ROSHN’s leadership team, Pablo Salcedo, executive director of digital products; Jayesh Maganlal, group chief information and digital officer; and Yazeed Alghmadi, director of emerging technologies,
Summary: Google Cloud is helping Saudi-based real estate developer ROSHN transform home acquisition with digital and AI-led experiences. With Google Cloud, ROSHN has launched a host of online services — from an app to an internal AI assistant to a smart waste management tool — to help thousands of people find the right home for them as easily as possible.
Challenge: ROSHN wanted to drive digital innovation in the Kingdom’s real estate sector and deliver a new way for its customers to find and buy their homes online. In addition to the technical challenges of building out its online services, Saudi Arabia’s regulations also required ROSHN to store its data in the Kingdom.
Solution: When Google Cloud launched its Dammam Cloud Region, ROSHN was an early adopter and able to stay compliant with the Kingdom’s data residency requirements and make use of the full range of tools available. Using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud SQL, and Pub/Sub with managed services, ROSHN was able to build a robust infrastructure that can scale at speed, helping to cut time to market down from months to minutes. In addition, ROSHN adopted Google Cloud AI tools, such as Gemini Cloud Assist, to enable its engineers to work faster and smarter on new products like its mobile app and an internal AI assistant — powered by Google’s multimodal Gemini models — that make it easier for buyers to acquire their homes online and request services in ROSHN’s residential communities.
Results: Since launching its digital services in 2023, ROSHN has helped thousands of people find their new homes online. Along with its mobile app and internal AI assistant, the company is continuing to explore and perfect new products like a smart waste management tool that leverages Vision AI to improve recycling rates and optimize trash collection.
Key takeaways and highlights from our interview:
→ “The Google Cloud platform has increasingly become our go-to place for technology solutions and services. This capability is thanks to first, leveraging standard products like GKE, Cloud SQL, or Pub/Sub to [make] our products more robust and better. Second, managed services in order to scale faster and [not] take care of the infrastructure.” - Pablo Sanz, Executive Director of Digital Products at ROSHN
→ “We are connecting directly with Gemini Cloud Assist to increase the productivity of our engineers. We are leveraging production recommendation algorithms and cancellation prediction models to better understand what our customers want and don’t want. We’re using tools such as Gemini Flash from the Model Garden to power our internal ROSHN AI assistant.” - Jayesh Maganlal, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer at ROSHN
→ “Data residency was a key issue for us given the need to be in line with the Kingdom's laws and regulations. With the launch of Google Cloud region in Dammam, we were an early adopter and happy to use [these] services while complying with the laws and regulations.” - Yazeed Alghamdi, Director of Emerging Technologies at ROSHN
Google Cloud products used: Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, Gemini Code Assist, Gemini, Vision AI
Learn more: https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/companies-news/roshn-to-collaborate-with-google-cloud-to-unlock-the-power-of-ai-pk8q7i01