Board the AI Train While the Tickets Are Free Today

Google's Workspace for Nonprofits costs zero dollars per user per month, according to its official support page, and today it includes features from Gemini and the NotebookLM tool, with the no-cost plan covering up to 2,000 users in an organisation. That is what we mean by Npsai's phrase «the tickets are free today»: not absolute freeness, but a low-cost entrance that even a small association can try.

What is actually on offer?

These offers are documented from their sources at the time of writing; they change, and they vary by country and eligibility:

• Google: the Workspace for Nonprofits plan at no cost, including Gemini and NotebookLM, though Gemini inside Gmail and Docs is not part of it. The Business Standard plan is $3.50 per user instead of $14. The eligibility page lists Saudi Arabia among the eligible countries, provided the organisation verifies its eligibility.
• Microsoft: an annual Azure credit of $2,000 for eligible nonprofits, and discounted pricing for Copilot that requires a Microsoft 365 licence. The page notes that offers differ by country.
• OpenAI: a 20% discount on ChatGPT Business at launch and 50% on Enterprise, with an update in February 2026 mentioning a discount of up to 75% through the sales team.
• Anthropic: a discount of up to 75% on Claude team and enterprise plans (December 2025), with a free course titled «AI Fluency for Nonprofits» in cooperation with GivingTuesday.

Is the spread really that fast?

It is sometimes said that AI will achieve in three years what the internet achieved in thirty; we found no support for that. The documented comparison is more exact: according to an American paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (Bick, Blandin and Deming, 2024), use of generative AI reached about 39% of American adults aged 18 to 64 after roughly two years, whereas the internet stood at 20% in its second year. At work it reached 27% after two years, against 25% for the personal computer after three. These are general American figures, not specific to the nonprofit sector or to Saudi Arabia, so keep them as evidence of the speed of spread, not as a prediction of your own outcome.

The price of waiting

We will not invent a figure for the «cost of inaction», because it differs from one association to another. But you can calculate it yourself: how many hours does your team spend each month on repetitive tasks, such as writing reports, summarising meetings, drafting messages to donors and organising beneficiary data? Multiply the hours by their cost, and compare that with a controlled trial of a single tool. Time that is lost could have been spent on beneficiaries. That is the real price of waiting, and it is a price you are best placed to estimate.

Before boarding: trust and data

Donors' money and beneficiaries' data are a trust. So do not send their names and cases to a tool whose privacy terms you have not understood, check the personal-data protection regulations in force in the Kingdom, and keep human review on every text that goes out in the organisation's name. For more, see the articles «Privacy in the AI Era» and «Principles of Responsible AI». And beware of offers tempting you to depend on one supplier; today's discount may change tomorrow.

First steps

Begin with one question: which repetitive task wears out your team and can be reviewed? Try one tool on it for a month, measure the hours saved, write a short policy defining what may be entered and what may not, and train your team to review. If the trial succeeds, expand gradually; if it does not, you have learnt at little cost.

The phrase "the tickets are free today" goes back to a text by Npsai, an initiative that supports the nonprofit sector with workshops and consultancy in this field.

Reliance on God does not conflict with taking the means; so start small and master what is in your hands, God willing.