DMCC has launched DMCC Cyber, a dedicated cybersecurity vertical, while formally establishing DMCC Tech, a unified technology platform bringing together its specialised innovation centres as the number of technology companies operating within its business district surpasses 4,000.

The launch comes as technology becomes the largest and fastest-growing sector within DMCC, reflecting Dubai’s continued emergence as a global hub for innovation and digital businesses. The technology community now accounts for more than 4,000 companies, prompting DMCC to expand its specialist ecosystem to meet the evolving needs of the sector.

DMCC Cyber will serve as a dedicated platform for more than 200 cybersecurity companies operating across cyber resilience, digital trust, data protection, identity management, and governance, risk and compliance (GRC). The initiative complements DMCC’s existing specialist centres and recognises the growing importance of cybersecurity in supporting the digital economy.

Ahmed Bin Sulayem, executive chairman and chief executive officer of DMCC, said: “Technology has become the largest and fastest-growing sector in our business district, reflecting Dubai’s position as one of the world’s leading destinations for innovation and high-growth businesses. As that community has expanded, so too has the need for more specialised platforms that support different segments of the technology economy. DMCC Tech brings these communities together under a single ecosystem, while DMCC Cyber reflects the growing importance of cybersecurity in an increasingly digital world. Together, they strengthen our ability to help technology companies establish, connect and scale internationally from Dubai, with direct access to one of the world’s most dynamic business communities.”

DMCC Cyber joins the DMCC AI Centre, DMCC Crypto Centre and DMCC Gaming Centre under the newly established DMCC Tech platform, with DMCC Quantum set to launch in the future. Collectively, the platform connects technology companies to DMCC’s wider network of more than 26,000 member companies spanning global trade, finance, commodities and emerging technologies.

The ecosystem already hosts international technology companies including CrowdStrike, PwC, CYFIRMA and FPT Software, highlighting the scale and diversity of DMCC’s technology community.

DMCC said the platform is designed to support the full spectrum of the digital economy, spanning artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, blockchain, gaming and emerging technologies. It also extends to rapidly developing sectors such as the space economy, where advances in satellite technology, earth observation and space-derived data are creating new commercial opportunities across industries including trade, finance, logistics and resource management.

The launch of DMCC Tech and DMCC Cyber forms part of the free zone’s broader strategy to strengthen Dubai’s position as a global technology and innovation hub while providing businesses with specialised ecosystems to support international growth, collaboration and digital resilience.

Fitness in the UAE is no longer cyclical. People join a gym for a few months, lose motivation, start again later. That pattern is breaking. Instead, fitness is becoming part of people’s identity and routine, embedded into daily life rather than treated as a temporary goal. The Dubai Fitness Challenge and government health initiatives have accelerated awareness, but the deeper shift is cultural: people now understand that health, energy, mental wellbeing and longevity require ongoing investment. That mindset is creating sustained demand across the entire fitness ecosystem and reshaping what gyms must become to earn loyalty.

The UAE’s fitness industry is on a strong growth trajectory, supported by rising participation rates and initiatives like the Dubai Fitness Challenge. From your perspective, what is driving this sustained demand for fitness services in the country?

The growth of the UAE fitness industry is being driven by a combination of government initiatives, greater health awareness and a broader shift in how people think about wellbeing. Programmes such as Dubai Fitness Challenge have played an important role in making fitness more accessible and visible, helping millions of people build healthier habits over the years.

More importantly, we’re seeing fitness move from being a short-term goal to becoming part of everyday lifestyle and routine. People are increasingly recognising that health, energy, mental wellbeing and longevity require ongoing investment rather than occasional attention. That mindset shift is creating sustained demand across the entire fitness ecosystem

Warehouse Gym started with a single location in Al Quoz and has expanded across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. What has been the core strategy behind that growth, and how has the brand evolved since launch?

The growth strategy has always been centred around building something authentic rather than simply opening more locations. When Warehouse Gym launched in Al Quoz, we weren’t trying to create a traditional gym. We wanted to build an environment that reflected the culture and energy of the fitness community we were already part of.

Over time, we’ve evolved from a strength and functional training-focused gym into a much broader fitness ecosystem. Today, our members want access to multiple training modalities, recovery services, coaching expertise and community experiences under one roof. Our expansion has largely been driven by listening to how consumers are changing and evolving the brand alongside them.

While the facilities, services and footprint have grown significantly, the core philosophy remains the same: create spaces where people genuinely enjoy spending time and can build long-term habits around health and fitness.

The traditional gym model is shifting toward experience-led fitness spaces that combine training, recovery, and social interaction. How is Warehouse Gym responding to that shift in consumer expectations?

This shift has been happening for several years. Consumers today expect far more than access to equipment. They’re looking for environments that motivate them, support their goals and fit naturally into their lifestyle.

At Warehouse Gym, that has meant continually expanding beyond traditional gym offerings. We have built a multi-modality model that combines strength training, functional fitness, group classes, recovery services, wellness experiences and community events within the same ecosystem.

The most successful fitness spaces today recognise that training, recovery and social connection are no longer separate categories. They are all part of the overall member experience. Our role is to create an environment where those elements work together seamlessly.

You’ve seen strong spikes in check-ins and class participation recently, including record usage levels. What does that tell you about changing consumer behaviour around fitness and routine?

It tells us that people are becoming more consistent and intentional with their fitness habits. Historically, many people approached fitness in cycles, joining a gym for a few months, losing motivation and then starting again later.

What we’re increasingly seeing is fitness becoming part of people’s identity and routine rather than something they do temporarily. Members are engaging with multiple parts of the business, whether that’s strength training, classes, recovery services or community events.

It also reflects the growing importance of accountability and community. People are far more likely to stay consistent when they feel connected to a culture, a group of people and an atmosphere that motivates them to show up. The energy inside a gym, the people around you and the sense of being part of something bigger all play an important role in building long-term habits.

That’s one of the biggest behavioural shifts we’ve seen over the last decade: people are no longer just looking for access to equipment, they’re looking for an experience and a community that helps them stay committed to their goals.

Fitness is increasingly becoming a lifestyle choice rather than a standalone activity. How important is community-building in your model, and how do you actively design for it?

Community has always been one of the foundations of Warehouse Gym. In many ways, it’s the reason the brand exists.

People often talk about community as if it’s something you can manufacture, but genuine community comes from shared experiences, consistency and culture. It has to be earned over time.

We actively design for that through events, group training, collaborations, educational sessions and creating spaces where people naturally interact beyond their workouts. More recently, we’ve expanded that thinking into supporting local businesses, entrepreneurs and knowledge-sharing initiatives as part of the broader Warehouse Gym ecosystem.

The reality is that fitness is often the entry point, but community is what keeps people engaged long term.

Recovery, wellness, and longevity are becoming central to the broader fitness conversation. How is that influencing the way gyms are structured, both in terms of facilities and programming?

It’s having a significant impact on both facility design and programming.

The modern consumer understands that long-term health isn’t just about training harder. It’s about balancing performance with recovery, mobility, stress management and sustainability. As a result, gyms are increasingly being designed around a more holistic wellness journey.

At Warehouse Gym, we’ve integrated recovery offerings such as ice baths, infrared saunas, cryotherapy, sports therapy and mobility-focused programming alongside more traditional training modalities. The goal isn’t to replace fitness with recovery, but to create a more complete environment that helps members perform better and stay healthier over the long term.

I think we’ll continue to see recovery become a natural extension of the fitness experience rather than a separate category altogether.

As Warehouse Gym expands into new locations including Sheikha Fatima Park, First Avenue Mall, and Ras Al Khaimah, what does that expansion signal about where the UAE fitness market is heading next?

It signals that fitness demand is becoming increasingly embedded within communities rather than being concentrated in a handful of commercial districts.

Historically, fitness growth was heavily centred around major urban hubs. Today, we’re seeing strong demand across a much wider range of residential, lifestyle and community-focused destinations.

Consumers want fitness to be integrated into their daily lives. They want access to high-quality facilities closer to where they live, work and spend time. The success of community-led locations and mixed-use developments reflects that shift.

For us, expansion is less about geography and more about being present where people are building their lifestyles and routines. That’s where we see the future of the industry heading.

Do you see fitness brands in the UAE becoming broader lifestyle platforms that go beyond gym access, and if so, what does that future look like for Warehouse Gym?

Absolutely. The future of fitness will be far broader than gym memberships alone. The most successful brands will operate as lifestyle platforms that support multiple aspects of physical and mental wellbeing.

That doesn’t mean trying to do everything. It means understanding how fitness connects with recovery, education, community, performance, nutrition and overall quality of life.

W e’re already moving in that direction through recovery services, educational initiatives, community programming and partnerships that extend beyond traditional fitness. The long-term vision is to continue building an ecosystem that supports how people actually live, train and connect today.

I think the future belongs to brands that help people build healthier lifestyles, not just better workouts.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m the co-founder of Rechitta. I started building technology at a young age and have always been fascinated by how intelligent systems can solve real-world problems. Rather than following a traditional path and continuing to university, I chose to focus on building Rechitta. Today, my role is centred on shaping Rechitta’s product vision and ensuring our AI delivers practical value by making real estate communication faster, more accurate, and more intuitive.

What inspired you to start Rechitta along with your partner at this young age?

The inspiration came from a simple observation. Despite Dubai being one of the world’s most advanced real estate markets, communication remained highly fragmented. Buyers, brokers, and developers were often working with different information depending on who they spoke to. That inconsistency created delays, confusion, and missed opportunities.

We saw an opportunity to build a trusted communication layer powered by verified developer data, ensuring everyone operates from the same source of truth in real time. Rechitta was created to bring greater transparency, consistency, and speed to real estate communication, helping developers and brokers respond to global market demand up to 10x more effectively.

What is the technology used to power this platform?

Rechitta is an AI-native platform built specifically for real estate. It combines verified developer data, proprietary communication infrastructure, multilingual AI capabilities, and a model-agnostic architecture that allows us to continuously leverage the latest advances in AI.

What makes it different is that it works directly with first-party developer data and understands real estate-specific workflows, from inventory and payment plans to broker interactions and buyer behaviour. This enables highly accurate, contextual responses while significantly reducing the inconsistencies often associated with AI systems.

How is this not another chatbot?

A chatbot answers questions. Rechitta understands how real estate actually works.

Rechitta is a domain-specific intelligence platform built around developer inventory, payment plans, project timelines, broker workflows, buyer behaviour, and real-time market demand. Every interaction contributes to a structured intelligence layer that helps developers, brokers, and buyers make faster, more informed decisions.

Think of Rechitta less as a chatbot and more as an intelligent communication infrastructure designed specifically for real estate.

What is your revenue model and how do you plan to scale this?

Our revenue model is subscription-based, with pricing designed around the scale and value delivered to developers and broker networks. The platform helps users reduce communication inefficiencies, improve information accuracy, and engage with demand at a much larger scale.

Our scaling strategy is straightforward: establish Rechitta as the trusted communication layer within Dubai’s real estate ecosystem, deepen integrations across developers and brokers, and then expand into other regional and international property markets facing similar communication challenges.

What’s next after this?

Our immediate focus is adoption across Dubai’s real estate ecosystem. Over the next year, we aim to become the default communication layer connecting developers, brokers, and buyers through verified real-time information.

Longer term, our vision extends beyond Dubai. We believe every major property market faces similar challenges around fragmented communication and inconsistent information. Our goal is to build Rechitta into the AI infrastructure layer that powers how global real estate markets communicate, understand demand, and transact.

For years, businesses in the GCC treated Arabic as a localisation checkbox: build the AI model in English, translate the interface into Arabic, ship it. The problem is that customer conversations are not only about language; they are about meaning, context, tone and intent. A grammatically correct translation can still sound stilted, disrespectful or tone-deaf to how Arabic-speaking customers actually communicate.

Arabic is not one language, it is a diverse ecosystem of Modern Standard Arabic, Khaleeji, Levantine, Egyptian and North African dialects, code-switching between Arabic and English, different levels of formality by market and cultural cues that a translation layer cannot capture. The strongest deployments in banking, retail and government are now moving away from monolithic Arabic bots toward dialect-specific tuning, conversational design by local market, and human-in-the-loop escalation that maintains context and trust.

Emir Kalem, head of customer success, EMEA at Infobip, has watched this shift accelerate across the region. What was once a competitive advantage, Arabic capability done well, is now moving toward baseline expectation. The new differentiator is quality: whether the AI understands not just Arabic, but the customer behind the Arabic, and whether it knows when to hand a conversation back to a human without forcing the customer to start over.

As AI adoption accelerates across the GCC, why are businesses realising that simply translating English-language models into Arabic is no longer enough? What does truly “Arabic-first” AI look like in practice?

For a long time, many businesses treated Arabic as a localisation exercise: build the model in English, then translate the interface or responses into Arabic. That approach is no longer enough because customer conversations are not only about language; they are about meaning, context, tone and intent.

Translation can be a shortcut, but it is often an imperfect one. A translated response may be grammatically correct, but still sound stilted, overly formal, or tone-deaf to how Arabic-speaking customers communicate. It may miss dialect, cultural cues, urgency, humour, frustration, or the level of formality expected in a specific interaction. Arabic is a highly diverse language ecosystem. Modern Standard Arabic may be understood across the region, but people do not always use it in everyday customer interactions. Customers in Riyadh, Dubai, Cairo, Amman, or Beirut may all speak Arabic, but the dialect, phrasing, tone, and expectations can be very different.

That is why Arabic-first AI must be able to understand not only Modern Standard Arabic, but also Khaleeji, Levantine, Egyptian and North African Arabic. It also needs to handle Arabic-English and Arabic-French code-switching, spelling variations, diacritics and right-to-left formatting.

Truly Arabic-first AI starts with Arabic-native data and real regional conversational patterns, not translated content. It also needs to respect cultural and religious contexts, from phrasing around Ramadan and Eid to appropriate greetings, levels of formality, and escalation cues when a customer is frustrated or dealing with a sensitive issue.

The goal should not be to make AI “speak Arabic” in a literal sense. It should be to make AI understand Arabic-speaking customers in the way they naturally communicate. The most effective deployments combine Arabic-first language models with conversational AI platforms that consider Arabic a primary language rather than a secondary localization.

The approach when building an agentic AI platform is to treat Arabic as a first-class language, not a translation layer, and to orchestrate conversations across channels with the cultural and dialect awareness the region expects.

Arabic is highly nuanced, with regional dialects, cultural sensitivities and different consumer behaviours across the Gulf. How are businesses navigating that complexity when deploying conversational AI tools?

The most advanced businesses are moving away from the idea of a single, monolithic Arabic bot. Arabic-speaking customers are not one uniform audience, so conversational AI cannot be designed as a one-size-fits-all solution.

A strong foundation in Modern Standard Arabic is important, but it is only the starting point. Businesses then need dialect-specific tuning by market, because the way customers communicate in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan or Morocco can differ significantly. Even within the Gulf, the expected level of formality, phrasing and preferred customer service tone may vary from one market to another.

One of the crucial steps that’s taken when developing an agentic platform internally is the same layered logic: Arabic-first language models, intent libraries and locally designed conversation flows working in concert, with agents that continuously learn from real customer interactions across markets.

The best results often come when businesses involve local linguists, CX specialists and frontline agents in the design process. Frontline teams understand how customers actually speak, including informal phrasing, mixed Arabic-English language, complaints, family-led decision-making, and sensitive seasonal moments such as Ramadan, Eid or Hajj. It is also important to design for edge cases. A customer may be asking a simple product question, making a complaint, following up on a financial transaction, or seeking support during a religious holiday. Each of these moments requires a different level of sensitivity.

Finally, Arabic conversational AI should not be treated as a closed loop. Businesses need a graceful human handover, ideally within the same channel, with the full conversation context carried forward. The customer should not have to repeat themselves or feel that they are being pushed from bot to agent. When done well, the AI becomes part of a seamless customer journey rather than a barrier between the brand and the customer.

We’re seeing major investments in AI across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but where are companies still getting customer communication wrong, particularly when it comes to Arabic-speaking audiences?

One of the biggest mistakes is still designing customer journeys in English first and then adding Arabic later. That may work for a basic FAQ, but it often breaks down when the customer has a more complex query, uses dialect, or expects a more natural conversation. Often, the bot provides an awkwardly translated reply or reverts to English when the Arabic query is too complex.

The second issue is tone. Arabic customer communication is not just about accuracy, it is also about using the right register. If the response is too casual, it may feel disrespectful. If it is too formal or bureaucratic, it can feel distant and frustrating. This is especially important in the Gulf, where customers often expect a respectful, reassuring and culturally aware style of communication.

Another area where companies get it wrong is channel choice. Many businesses still push customers towards email, web forms or app-only journeys, while customers increasingly expect to engage through conversational channels such as WhatsApp. The region has leapfrogged into mobile-first and messaging-led communication, so brands need to meet customers where they already are, not where internal systems are most comfortable.

Businesses also sometimes underestimate the operational side of AI. Arabic conversational AI is not something you launch once and leave alone. It needs continuous training, monitoring and refinement based on real conversations, new customer behaviours and changing market expectations.

Finally, data residency and compliance are becoming increasingly important. As AI regulation, data protection rules and sector-specific requirements evolve across the GCC and wider region, businesses need to ensure their customer communication systems are not only effective but also compliant and trusted. This is particularly critical in banking, healthcare and government services, where customers expect both convenience and strong safeguards.

From banking and retail to travel and government services, which sectors in the region are seeing the strongest returns from Arabic-enabled conversational AI, and what kind of business impact are they reporting?

Banking and financial services are clearly leading the way. The combination of high transaction volumes, repetitive inquiries, regulatory pressure to reduce contact centre calls, and customers who increasingly prefer chat over phone has created a near-perfect fit for Arabic-enabled conversational AI.

Within our own ecosystem, we’re seeing banks across the UAE and Saudi Arabia automate 60 to 70% of routine queries, balance inquiries, card activation, statement requests, in Arabic, with measurable drops in cost to serve and improvements in CSAT.” Concrete brand attribution lands harder than generic “we are seeing.

Retail and e-commerce are the next strong categories. Conversational commerce, particularly through WhatsApp, is genuinely changing the buying journey in the region. Customers can browse, ask questions, receive personalised recommendations and complete purchases without ever leaving the chat. Brands that do this well in Arabic are seeing higher conversion rates and lower cart abandonment compared with web-only journeys.

Travel and hospitality are also accelerating, especially around major events and tourism initiatives such as Saudi Vision 2030. Arabic-enabled assistants can handle booking changes, itinerary questions and pre-arrival communication, helping reduce pressure on call centres during peak periods.

Government services may be the most strategically important. Several GCC governments have made Arabic-first digital services a national priority, and conversational AI is becoming the digital front door for citizen services, from visa inquiries to municipal questions. In this space, the impact is less about cost saving and more about accessibility, service quality and scale.

Overall, the strongest returns are coming from sectors where customer volume is high, speed matters, and Arabic communication directly affects trust and completion rates.

As generative AI becomes more embedded in customer service, do you see Arabic-language capability becoming a competitive advantage for companies in the Middle East, or is it quickly becoming a baseline expectation?

It is moving from advantage to expectation much faster than many leadership teams realise.

Two years ago, a brand with a functional Arabic chatbot could genuinely differentiate itself. Today, customers increasingly assume that Arabic support will be available. The question is no longer simply whether a company has Arabic AI, but whether the Arabic experience is good enough. The new differentiators are quality, dialect awareness, tone, the ability to manage complex multi-turn conversations, seamless escalation to human agents, and personalisation that actually feels personal.

Customers do not want a translated experience that feels generic. They want to feel that the company understands how they speak, what they need, and the context they are coming from.

The companies pulling ahead are treating Arabic capability not as a feature, but as a strategic capability. They are investing in their own data, conversation design talent and governance frameworks. This is especially important in a region where AI is increasingly being positioned as part of the national digital infrastructure. Customers will eventually evaluate brands in the same way they evaluate digital banks or government platforms: how well does this company speak to me in my language, in a way that respects who I am?

So, basic Arabic capability is quickly becoming table stakes. But excellent Arabic AI, the kind that earns loyalty rather than simply deflecting tickets, will remain a competitive advantage for some time. Brands that move now to build that capability properly will help define the next phase of the customer experience in the region.

As AI handles more customer interactions in Arabic, how are businesses ensuring accuracy, avoiding cultural missteps and maintaining consumer trust, particularly in highly regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare and government services?

As AI moves from handling simple FAQs to executing real transactions in Arabic, such as transferring funds, booking medical appointments or processing government applications, the tolerance for error drops sharply. A mistranslated phrase in a marketing chatbot can be inconvenient. The same error in a banking flow could become a compliance incident. That is why businesses in regulated sectors are building much more disciplined guardrails around how Arabic AI is trained, deployed and supervised.

The first layer is data and model integrity. Leading banks, hospitals and ministries are no longer accepting models trained only on generic internet data. They want visibility into the Arabic data being used, confidence that dialect coverage matches their customer base, and assurance that the model has been evaluated against region-specific benchmarks, not only translated English test sets.

The second layer is cultural and linguistic review. Serious deployments now involve native Arabic linguists, Sharia advisors in Islamic banking, and clinical or legal subject matter experts for quality assurance. They review not only grammar, but also tone, formality and framing. The question becomes: would this message sound right coming from a Saudi government entity, an Emirati private bank or a Qatari hospital?

The third layer is regulatory and architectural control. Sectors governed by central banks, ministries of health and similar authorities are demanding in-region data residency, audit trails for AI-generated responses, human-in-the-loop escalation for sensitive issues, and clear disclosure that the customer is interacting with AI. Explainability is also becoming more important, especially if AI is involved in decisions such as loan inquiries or healthcare symptom flags.

This is exactly why we built Infobip’s AgentOS with human-in-the-loop escalation as a core principle, the agent recognises when to hand over, and carries full conversation context, customer history and dialect cues to the human agent, in the same channel. That handover quality is often the difference between AI that earns trust and AI that erodes it.

Economic diversification, rapid technology adoption and an increasingly volatile global landscape are redefining the role of the chief executive across the Gulf. Growth is no longer pursued independently of cost discipline, artificial intelligence or workforce transformation. Instead, CEOs are expected to deliver on all fronts simultaneously while making faster, higher-stakes decisions.

According to Pedro Oliveira, managing partner, India, Middle East and Africa (IMEA) at Oliver Wyman, this shift marks a new leadership mandate, one where competitive advantage depends less on setting ambitious strategies and more on executing them with discipline.

Drawing on findings from The CEO Agenda 2026, a global survey of 415 chief executives representing around 10 per cent of global market capitalisation, Oliveira explains why Gulf leaders are rethinking investment, AI deployment, mergers and acquisitions, and talent strategies to build organisations capable of sustaining growth through uncertainty.

What has changed in the role of the CEO across the Gulf?

The role has become more compressed and more complex. CEOs can no longer deal with growth, resilience, artificial intelligence, workforce change and capital allocation one at a time. These issues are now moving together, and they require simultaneous attention.

For business leaders in the GCC, this is not an abstract global trend. The region is already operating through rapid economic transformation, large-scale investment, technology adoption and geopolitical volatility. CEOs are being asked to keep growing, keep transforming and maintain resilience at the same time.

That is also reflected in The CEO Agenda 2026, a new report by the Oliver Wyman Forum and the New York Stock Exchange, based on a survey of 415 chief executives representing around 10 per cent of global market capitalisation. Almost two-thirds of CEOs see today’s volatility as an opportunity to out manoeuvre competitors. The challenge is to convert that ambition into better decisions and stronger execution.

Why is this particularly relevant to GCC companies?

The Gulf encountered this shift earlier, and more intensely, than many other markets. Across the region, national growth models have been built around speed, ambition and the willingness to move early.

In the UAE, that is visible in its role as a global hub economy, using infrastructure, regulation and openness to position itself at the centre of capital, talent and trade flows. In Saudi Arabia, it can be seen in the scale of domestic economic transformation and the creation of new sectors. Qatar has also shifted from World Cup-driven infrastructure investment towards a broader growth model spanning energy, financial services and the knowledge economy.

These ambitions remain a strength. What has changed is the delivery challenge. CEOs must now make several critical decisions in parallel, often with incomplete information and under closer scrutiny from boards, shareholders and employees.

The report suggests that growth now has to pay for itself. What does that mean?

It means growth remains the priority, but the funding model has become more disciplined. Two-thirds of CEOs rank a growth lever as their main objective, while 58 per cent cite cost management among their top three priorities.

That does not mean companies are becoming defensive. It means cost discipline is being used to fund investment in technology, transformation and acquisitions. Efficiency is not the end goal. It is a source of capital for growth.

For GCC companies, this is a useful distinction. The region’s growth ambitions remain high, but capital has to be deployed with greater precision. The question is whether companies can direct investment into the areas that improve competitiveness, resilience and long-term value.

Why is M&A so prominent on the CEO agenda?

An overwhelming number of CEOs, 94 per cent, plan deals over the next one to two years. The more important point is what companies are trying to achieve through M&A.

This is not only about scale. It is increasingly about speed, expertise and capability. In some cases, companies are using acquisitions and partnerships to access specialist capabilities that would take too long to build organically.

That resonates strongly in the Gulf. Businesses in sectors such as financial services, healthcare, industrials and energy are using deals and strategic partnerships to accelerate capability-building. The strongest deals will be those that support a clear strategic need and help the organisation execute faster, rather than simply becoming another layer to manage.

How are shorter planning horizons changing the CEO role?

CEOs globally now spend half their planning time on horizons of less than a year, up from 43 per cent in 2025. At the same time, boards are becoming more involved in strategy, risk and leadership decisions. The report also notes that 11 per cent of CEOs were replaced in 2025.

That creates pressure to deliver quickly. In periods of volatility, leaders naturally focus on continuity, liquidity, resilience and near-term performance. The risk is that short-term reaction starts to crowd out long-term clarity.

For Gulf companies, this is especially important. Many are aligned with long-term economic transformation agendas, so they cannot afford to make decisions only around the next quarter or the next disruption. The strongest organisations will respond quickly while still making disciplined choices about where they can win over time.

What does the report tell us about AI adoption?

AI is the clearest example of the gap between ambition and execution. The report shows that about two-thirds of CEOs are still primarily planning or piloting AI deployment, and 53 per cent say it is too early to assess return on investment.

The lesson is not that AI is overhyped. It is that implementation is harder than expected. Moving from experimentation to commercial value requires changes to workflows, operating models, roles, data and governance.

At the same time, the divide is widening. AI deployment leaders are around three times more likely than laggards to say returns are meeting or exceeding expectations. Advantage is shifting to companies that can move beyond pilots and embed AI into how the business actually works.

What should CEOs in the GCC take from that AI finding?

Markets across the GCC have rightly placed AI and digital capability at the centre of their long-term ambitions. But early ambition is not the same as commercial value.

The practical question for CEOs is where AI should drive growth, where it should improve efficiency, where it can improve customer experience, and where the risks remain too high. That requires disciplined prioritisation. Companies do not need isolated pilots across every function. They need a clearer view of where AI can improve performance, and then they need to redesign work around it.

The most advanced organisations are treating governance, workflow redesign and adoption as part of AI deployment, not as secondary issues. That is where the value will come from.

How should companies think about the workforce implications?

The workforce implications are more immediate than much of the public debate suggests. The report shows that 43 per cent of CEOs plan to reduce junior roles, while 45 per cent expect to keep overall headcount broadly flat.

This is not simply a cost story. It reflects a structural redesign of how work gets done. As AI changes the operating model, companies are reassessing which roles they need, how work should be organised and what skills will matter most.

For high-growth GCC markets, there is an important caution. Reducing junior roles may improve short-term efficiency, but it can also weaken the pipeline of future managers and leaders. The next phase of competitiveness will depend on adopting new technologies without undermining long-term capability-building.

What should CEOs prioritise now?

The priority is to make faster and better decisions across multiple fronts without sacrificing long-term strength for short-term speed. That means pursuing growth, but ensuring it is self-funded and linked to execution. It means investing in AI, but focusing on deployment and measurable value. It means using M&A to build capability, not just scale. And it means reshaping the workforce without weakening the leadership pipeline.

Perhaps the main lesson is not simply that the world has become more uncertain. Leaders in this region already understand that. The real lesson is that advantage now lies in managing complexity with discipline: moving quickly, making sharper choices and building organisations that can grow through volatility without becoming more fragile.