Investor Newsletter, January 2026

Dear Investor,

Over the past year I have revisited some earlier scepticism I expressed around the role of artificial intelligence in mineral exploration. At that time, my view was that AI lacked the depth of empirical grounding and iterative feedback required to materially influence discovery outcomes. In some respects that view still holds; ore deposits are not engineered products, there are no blueprints, and exploration remains a discipline of non-unique solutions where every discovery is a surprise and every surprise is different. Until machines can walk the ground, recognize rocks, identify contact relationships, measure structures, and make complex and important judgement calls at the level of inference, human skill and experience remain fundamental.

What has changed is not the destination, but the journey. I have come to appreciate that AI’s current impact in exploration is largely indirect, yet profound. Rather than “finding” deposits, AI is enabling discovery. Of particular interest to me is its role in permitting smaller, technically focused companies to internalise skills that were historically outsourced. Desktop research, time-space reconstructions, targeting studies, large scale data synthesis, and even aspects of specialist geological interpretation can now be performed in-house, iterated rapidly, and owned intellectually by lean inquisitive teams. For the first time, tools that once sat firmly in the consultants domain are becoming accessible, adaptable, and proprietary at the company level.

This distinction matters. Traditional consulting models provide for largely non-iterative hand-offs; valuable, but finite. Consultants unload and then have other clients and other jobs to get on with. By contrast, in-house capability supported by modern computational tools encourages continuous refinement, learning, and intellectual accumulation. It allows exploration teams to build knowledge rather than simply pay for and receive it. We are already seeing early signs of this shift at Royal Road: acquiring our own instruments, running our own surveys, replacing off-the-shelf software and routines with internal workflows, accelerating conceptual studies, using and developing emerging tools to interrogate data in new ways and in ways that were previously impractical for a company of our size.

The implication is that a new era is quietly emerging. Small exploration teams can aspire to develop their own technical depth, generate proprietary insight, and create genuine competitive advantage. In a business defined by uncertainty, ownership of understanding may prove to be one of the most valuable assets we can build.

Thank you for your continued support!

Saudi Arabia

Scout RC drilling on gold-bearing veins and zinc-silver skarn mineralization at Jabal Sahabiyah is now complete with results awaited. Reconnaissance exploration work on newly acquired licenses is underway.

Next in Saudi Arabia

• Receive results and complete interpretation of the drilling program at Jabal Sahabiyah
• Continue assessment of newly awarded license areas
• Participate in upcoming tenders

Check out our YouTube channel and catch up on previous episodes here if you haven’t already!

Thank you for your continued support and trust in our vision. We look forward to sharing more videos and updates with you in the coming months.

Respectfully Yours,
Royal Road Minerals