The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has prohibited healthcare advertisers from using absolute, exaggerated or potentially misleading expressions in medical advertisements published on social media.

Under the new standards, healthcare advertisements cannot use words and phrases such as “the best,” “the only,” “the safest,” “magic,” “miracle,” “guaranteed success,” “100%,” “no side effects” or “immediate results.”

Medical advertisements are also prohibited from claiming that a doctor or healthcare professional possesses an exclusive skill or provides a unique treatment. They cannot suggest that the outcome of a healthcare service will always be effective, according to media reports.

Read more-UAE’s under-15 social media ban could affect far more businesses than expected

The restrictions form part of the Medical Advertising Content Standards for Social Media, prepared by the DHA’s Health Regulation Sector. The standards set requirements for advertising content published by healthcare facilities and licensed healthcare professionals, with the aim of protecting patients and the wider public from inaccurate, unclear, misleading or deceptive medical claims.

Focus on informed healthcare decisions

The DHA said misleading medical advertising on social media could contribute to physically or psychologically unsafe practices, unnecessary medical procedures and inappropriate treatment.

Health information shared on social media should therefore be reliable, useful and presented in a way that allows patients, caregivers and members of the public to make informed decisions.

The authority described the monitoring and review of medical advertising as a proactive measure intended to protect the public, prevent misleading or unnecessary promotion of healthcare services and ensure patients have access to balanced information.

Under the standards, advertisements must not create unrealistic expectations about the effectiveness or likely results of a treatment or healthcare service. They must also not directly or indirectly encourage inappropriate, random, unnecessary or excessive use of healthcare services.

The rules cite promotional language such as “Don’t delay,” “Get the look you want” and “Look better and feel more confident” as examples of wording that could create an unrealistic impression about expected results.

Fear cannot be used to sell healthcare

The DHA has also drawn a clear line against the use of fear as a marketing tool.

Healthcare advertisers cannot attempt to make patients anxious about their health to increase demand for a product, procedure or service. They are also prohibited from exploiting patients’ vulnerability or limited health knowledge.

Words or messages that generate fear, anxiety, panic or distress are not permitted. Advertisements must not lead people to believe they have a serious, harmful or contagious disease without an appropriate basis for such a claim.

The rules are intended to ensure that medical advertising informs rather than pressures people into seeking treatment.

Strict limits on superiority claims

The standards also place restrictions on claims that a healthcare professional or facility is superior to competitors.

Advertisements cannot state or imply that a particular healthcare professional or facility provides services that are better or safer than those offered by others.

Similarly, advertisers cannot suggest that a treatment is guaranteed, cannot fail, or is “magical” or a “miracle.” Claims that a doctor has an exclusive or unique skill or treatment are also prohibited, as are claims that a product contains a “secret ingredient.”

Any information relating to treatment outcomes must be supported by evidence, whether the claim is made directly or indirectly. Advertisements must also disclose associated risks.

Healthcare professionals are expected to ensure that information they publish is honest, accurate, concise, current and easy for the public to understand.

Rules extend to influencers and doctors

The standards also cover promotional content published by influencers, healthcare professionals and administrative employees.

Any healthcare professional, influencer or administrative employee who promotes a healthcare activity, service or treatment result while naming or identifying a healthcare facility by name or location must obtain approval from the facility’s medical director before publishing the content.

Healthcare facilities are responsible for visual content filmed on their premises, regardless of whether it is professionally produced or recorded using a mobile phone or another personal device.

That responsibility applies whether the material is published through the facility’s official account or through accounts operated by doctors, employees or influencers.

All such content must comply with the ethical and cultural requirements applicable in the UAE.

A healthcare professional promoting only their own services, without naming or identifying a healthcare facility by name or location, remains responsible for content published through their professional account.

Patient privacy remains a key requirement

Patient privacy is another central element of the standards.

Photos, videos or statements involving an individual or patient cannot be used in an advertisement without documented written consent.

That consent must be limited to the specific purpose for which it was provided and to the stated period of use.

The standards prohibit the disclosure of patients’ identities and require healthcare professionals to safeguard patient privacy and confidentiality at all times. They must also take steps to prevent unauthorised access to personal information, photographs and other patient-related material.

Saudi Arabia’s aspiration to be the Middle East’s artificial intelligence hub is no longer a matter of strategy documents and headline investment figures. It is showing up in stadiums, on rigs, in meeting rooms and inside data centres — in the everyday operations of businesses and governments across the kingdom.

With LEAP 2026 now underway under the theme “Into New Worlds,” Gulf Business asked leaders from across the technology ecosystem two questions: what does the AI-hub ambition actually look like with their customers today, and what are they showcasing at the event? Their answers, featured below, point to a common thread: a shift from deploying technology to owning it, and from AI that advises to AI that acts.

Lakshmi Narayanan — general manager, Mannai Information Technology Saudi Arabia
For us, the AI-hub ambition looks like AI moving from pilots into permanent infrastructure. We see this clearly in sport, where venues and cities preparing for global sporting moments are being built on connectivity and data from the outset, not retrofitted later. But the pattern holds well beyond sport, across government, finance and healthcare too.

Customers are less focused on which platform to buy and more focused on what capability they keep. That shift, from deploying technology to owning it, is what a genuine AI hub looks like up close. At LEAP 2026, we’re showcasing how AI, connectivity and infrastructure work as one system across sports, cities and enterprises, rather than as separate technologies bolted together.

Fittingly, we’re in the SportsTech Hall this year, given how much of the kingdom’s momentum — from the Saudi Pro League to future hosting preparations — is now shaping wider digital investment. “Into New Worlds” speaks to that same convergence for us, where a stadium, a city and a business increasingly run on the same intelligent foundation.

Murad Ali — head of Middle East & Central Asia, Logitech for Business
Saudi customers are moving from discussing AI as a future opportunity to applying it across everyday business operations. There is a growing interest in smarter meeting spaces and technology that helps employees work more effectively. For Logitech, this means looking beyond individual devices and instead working on connected workplace ecosystems that are easy for IT teams to deploy and manage. AI-powered collaboration solutions can improve the experience of hybrid meetings, but they also help organisations build flexible workplaces. The opportunity is to make Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions practical, turning investment in technology into better experiences for employees and customers.

At LEAP 2026, we are showcasing how AI and intelligent collaboration technologies are reshaping the modern workplace. The new Rally AI Camera Pro and Rally AI Camera will be officially launched at the event, designed specifically for meeting rooms, boardrooms and other similar venues. At the same time, our current lineup of Logitech workplace solutions will be presented during the event.

Maher Jadallah — vice president, Middle East and Africa, Tenable
Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become an AI leader translates into rapid digital transformation, cloud adoption and massive growth across its attack surface. In practice, local organisations are deploying AI platforms, autonomous agents and cloud infrastructure at scale. However, as AI models accelerate the speed and volume of vulnerability disclosures, human-speed triage is no longer viable. Our customers are shifting from reactive firefighting to proactive risk reduction. They are using AI-driven context to cut through the noise, prioritising the tiny fraction of exposures that present legitimate attack paths to their critical business assets.

At LEAP 2026, we are demonstrating how organisations can securely navigate the new frontier of enterprise technology. In line with this year’s theme, “Into New Worlds,” and to support Vision 2030, we will be showcasing a major expansion to our Exposure Management platform. This includes Tenable Hexa AI, an agentic AI engine that automates complex remediation workflows at machine speed. We will also be introducing our expanded AI Exposure coverage across major large language models, Model Context Protocol deployments and AI-native developer environments, to help security teams govern shadow and authorised AI.

Rabii Al Khonaizi — regional sales director, Saudi Arabia and North MEA, Submer
Honestly, what I’m seeing with customers is that the conversation has moved from “if” to “how fast.” A few years ago, we were explaining what AI infrastructure requires. Today, customers are coming with power secured and clear timelines, asking how quickly they can deploy. The challenge now is not ambition or investment. It’s the practical side: power density, cooling and how quickly capacity can come online. We’re seeing this across operators, enterprises and government-backed projects. The pace of development in Saudi Arabia is impressive, and the kingdom is clearly serious about becoming a major AI and data centre hub. AI workloads are pushing data centres beyond what traditional infrastructure was designed to handle.

At Submer, we look at the whole infrastructure, not just one part of it. We support customers from advisory and design through build, power, thermal management and IT integration, helping them put the right infrastructure in place for high-density AI. The “Into New Worlds” theme fits well because the level of compute the region is looking for requires a different approach to power, cooling and deployment. LEAP brings together the people building this next generation of infrastructure, so it’s a great place to have those conversations.

Suliman Gaouda — regional vice president, AI – APJ MEA, IFS
In practice, it looks far less exciting than the headlines and far more consequential. Seventy per cent of the industrial workforce is not behind a desk. They are on the rig, up the tower, on the site, in the hangar.

Fifty years of enterprise software was built for the thirty per cent who are. So when an operator in the kingdom says they want to be an AI hub, the real test is not the size of the cluster. It is whether the AI reaches the other 70 per cent. Here is what that looks like on a Tuesday morning: a technician photographs a nameplate, and the system returns the asset identity, its maintenance history, the likely root cause ranked by confidence, and whether the part is in his van or the next one over. A turnaround scheduled by an algorithm rather than a spreadsheet and three phone calls. A chiller or a switchgear whose degradation raises a work order by itself, rather than lighting up a dashboard nobody owns. Two Saudi examples make it concrete. STC deployed 5,000 field service engineers on our scheduling and service management platform, one of the largest workforce optimisation programmes in the Middle East. ARO Drilling, the Saudi Aramco and Valaris joint venture, went live in nine months, on time and on budget, across maintenance, supply chain, finance and human capital for 400 full users and 2,000 self-service users. Their IT director put it plainly: from streamlined procurement to more efficient maintenance of critical equipment on the rigs, it changed how they operate.

Four forces are converging on that same seventy per cent. Half the skilled industrial workforce retires within five years. Supply chain disruption has stopped being an event and become a condition. The connected asset population is multiplying faster than anyone’s capacity to maintain it. And carbon has moved from an annual report into an operating constraint. Every one of those lands on the frontline. The kingdom’s real advantage is that it is building the operating layer at the same time as the compute, rather than a decade later. Most economies did it the other way round and are still paying for it.

At LEAP, we’re showcasing industrial AI that performs the work, rather than AI that produces one more recommendation. Three things specifically. IFS Loops digital workers, which carry a decision through to action across systems instead of stopping at an insight. IFS Nexus Black Resolve, which puts a senior engineer in every frontline worker’s pocket: the technician captures a fault by photo, voice or video, and gets back a diagnosis, the right part and a guided repair path before the next shift change. And IFS.ai Operational Intelligence, which reads telemetry off rotating equipment, power and cooling, detects the anomaly, and raises the maintenance work request.

On the theme: “Into New Worlds” is usually read as the frontier, and the frontier everyone is looking at is the model. We would argue the harder new world is the one where an agent is trusted to act inside a live industrial operation, with governance, an audit trail, and someone accountable for the outcome. That is not a model problem. Put it plainly: SAP will record that the money was spent and the person was paid. It will not tell you why the crane is getting slower. That answer lives in the machine — in the vibration, the temperature, the pressure, the operator’s log. Reading that language and turning it into a work order, a schedule, a spare part and a capital decision is the new world we are building for. And the proof is already public.

The United States has issued fresh security alerts through its embassies and consulates across the Middle East, urging American citizens to “exercise heightened vigilance” as Washington launched a new round of military strikes against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), raising fears of further regional escalation.

The warnings came shortly after US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed on X that American forces had begun striking IRGC targets in Iran.

In its statement, CENTCOM said: “Today at 12 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”

The alerts, published on Tuesday by multiple US diplomatic missions, warned that the security environment remains volatile and that Americans in the region should be prepared for potential flight cancellations, airspace closures and other travel disruptions.

The warnings come after a sharp deterioration in the regional security situation, with the US launching additional strikes against Iranian targets in response to attacks on commercial shipping and American forces. Iran has vowed to respond, raising concerns that the conflict could widen further.

For years, exhibitors have debated one key question before major industry events: does securing the best location on the exhibition floor guarantee better results? According to Basma Dawwas, director LEAP Events, the answer is changing.

At a global technology gathering on the scale of LEAP, success is no longer determined simply by where a company’s booth is located. Instead, businesses that create meaningful engagement, build anticipation and develop strategic connections before the event are increasingly the ones achieving the strongest outcomes.

Read more: Inside LEAP: Behind the scenes of Saudi Arabia’s tech showcase

With LEAP bringing together more than 201,000 visitors and 1,800 exhibitors in 2025, Dawwas believes the future of exhibitions is moving away from passive visibility and towards purposeful interaction. “Location certainly influences visibility, but it no longer determines success,” Dawwas said.

Creating demand beyond the exhibition floor

Dawwas explained that successful exhibitors are adopting a more proactive approach to participation. Rather than depending solely on visitor traffic, leading companies are creating their own momentum through targeted campaigns, product announcements, speaking opportunities and pre-arranged meetings.

“Businesses that announce product launches, secure speaking opportunities, schedule meetings in advance and build anticipation through their own marketing consistently outperform those who simply wait for footfall,” she said.

This shift reflects a broader change in how companies measure exhibition success. The traditional approach of attracting large crowds to a booth is increasingly being replaced by strategies focused on relevance, engagement and high-value conversations.

“As LEAP has evolved, we’ve also invested heavily in making business connections more intentional,” Dawwas added. For 2026, LEAP will introduce LEAP Connect, a dedicated platform designed to support curated meetings and networking opportunities. The initiative aims to help companies build relationships based on shared objectives rather than relying on chance encounters across the exhibition floor. “Today, relevance beats proximity. The right conversation will always outperform passing foot traffic,” Dawwas said.

The real value begins after the event ends

While exhibitions often focus on what happens during the event itself, Dawwas highlighted that the weeks following LEAP can be even more important for businesses looking to convert conversations into opportunities.

“The most successful exhibitors understand that LEAP isn’t the finish line, it’s the beginning of the relationship,” she said. According to Dawwas, repeat exhibitors stand apart because they act quickly after the event, identifying their strongest leads, personalising follow-ups and maintaining engagement while discussions remain fresh.

“The weeks immediately after the event are often where the greatest commercial value is created,” she said.

Rather than measuring success through the number of business cards collected, leading companies focus on the strength and longevity of the relationships they establish.

“The companies that generate the greatest long-term return don’t measure success by the number of business cards they collect. They measure it by the quality of the relationships they continue building long after the exhibition closes,” Dawwas said.

“In many cases, what happens after LEAP determines whether the event becomes a cost, or a catalyst for growth,” she said.

LEAP’s growth stories

One of the most significant outcomes of LEAP’s evolution, according to Dawwas, has been watching companies grow through the opportunities created at the event.

She highlighted the journey of Ejari as an example of how participation can support long-term business development. After first connecting with investors during LEAP 2023, the company secured an initial $400,000 investment before raising further funding. The company is now returning to LEAP 2026 with a Unicorn Booth.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of reaching our fifth edition is seeing businesses that first joined LEAP as startups return years later as scale-ups, industry leaders and even unicorns,” Dawwas said.

A platform connecting multiple technology frontiers

Dawwas said LEAP’s ability to bring together multiple technology sectors under one platform is one of its defining characteristics. “LEAP differentiates itself by bringing together multiple technology industries that might often sit in separate forums,” she said. The event focuses on demonstrating how technology applications can create practical solutions across industries, moving beyond traditional discussions and presentations. “LEAP also pioneers immersive and experiential activations that go beyond traditional panels,” Dawwas said. “From AI-guided robotic surgery simulations to brain–computer interfaces translating neural signals into speech, visitors are not just hearing about future technologies, they are interacting directly with the organisations building them.”

The rise of new global technology markets

Dawwas also pointed to a major transformation taking place across the global technology landscape: the rise of emerging markets as centres of innovation.

“One of the biggest shifts in global tech is that innovation is no longer concentrated in a handful of traditional hubs,” she said.

Markets that were once considered secondary are increasingly becoming destinations where companies launch products, secure investment and expand internationally. She believes LEAP reflects this changing environment by providing a platform where startups, investors and technology leaders can experience the growth of the Middle East’s technology ecosystem firsthand.

As technology events continue to evolve, Dawwas believes the winners will be companies that look beyond visibility and focus on building meaningful connections, creating experiences and sustaining relationships long after the exhibition doors close.

Qatar Airways is expanding its Saudi Arabia operations this winter with the resumption of flights to four destinations and a double-digit increase in capacity, as the airline looks to meet growing travel demand across the Kingdom.

Services to Qassim will restart on October 25, followed by Taif on October 31, while Yanbu and Tabuk will rejoin the network on January 2 and January 3, respectively. Each destination will initially be served with two weekly flights.

The expansion will see Qatar Airways operate more than 155 weekly flights to Saudi Arabia during the winter schedule, representing an increase of more than 10 per cent compared with the summer season.

Saudi market demand drives expansion

The airline said it carried more than 2.3 million passengers between Saudi Arabia and its global network over the past 12 months, underlining the Kingdom’s importance within its regional strategy.

Earlier this year, Qatar Airways increased services to Riyadh from 35 to 49 weekly flights, offering passengers more connectivity through Hamad International Airport in Doha.

With the latest additions, the carrier’s Saudi network will comprise 13 destinations, including Abha, AlUla, Dammam, Hail, Jeddah, Madinah, Qassim, Riyadh, Tabuk, Taif, The Red Sea and Yanbu. Services to NEOM are expected to resume during the second half of 2027.

Starlink rollout continues

The airline is also expanding its onboard digital offering across the Kingdom.

Passengers travelling on selected widebody services to Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam can access complimentary gate-to-gate Starlink Wi-Fi, with Qatar Airways operating more than 685 Starlink-equipped flights across the three routes during July alone.

Winter schedule

Qassim (from October 25, 2026)

Sundays, with an additional Friday service from October 30.

Taif (from October 31, 2026)

Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Yanbu (from January 2, 2027)

Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Tabuk (from January 3, 2027)

Thursdays and Sundays.

Bookings for all four routes are now open through the airline’s website and mobile app. Passengers travelling on eligible flights can also earn and redeem Avios through Qatar Airways Privilege Club, including for upgrades, extra baggage and purchases at Qatar Duty Free.