The Middle East’s retail sector ended 2025 on a high, but the headline growth figures only tell part of the story. During peak periods such as Cyber Week, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Ramadan shopping season, consumer demand across the region surged. What matters more, however, is how that growth was achieved.

This was not a boom driven by deeper discounts or short-term promotions. Instead, it points to a more structural shift underway, one that will redefine how commerce works in 2026 and beyond. At the centre of that shift is the rise of agentic AI.

Based on aggregated commerce data and consumer research published by Salesforce, analysing activity from more than 1.5 billion shoppers and over 1.5 trillion page views globally during peak periods, clear changes are emerging in how people discover, decide, and engage, not just what they buy. Nowhere is that shift more visible than in the Middle East.

Cyber Week 2025 proved pivotal for the region. Across Middle Eastern markets, both online sales and orders grew by 23 per cent, with traffic up 19 per cent. Crucially, this growth was achieved without heavier discounting. Average discounts edged down to 27 per cent, from 28 per cent in 2024, a strong indicator of healthier, more confident demand.

Black Friday followed a similar pattern. Online sales rose 21 per cent, orders increased 20 per cent, and traffic grew 17 per cent, while average discounts narrowed slightly to 28 per cent, down from 29 per cent the year before. Even globally, where growth was more moderate, the Middle East continued to outperform, with Cyber Monday delivering 8 per cent online growth and a 19 per cent increase in traffic.

Beyond the traditional year-end shopping season, Ramadan once again underscored the region’s distinct retail dynamics. In March 2025, online sales increased by 19 per cent year-over-year, with traffic up 15 per cent. Retailers relied more heavily on promotions during this period, with average discounts rising to 21 per cent from 14 per cent the previous year, reflecting increased competition and heightened consumer awareness around seasonal value.

Taken together, these figures indicate a digitally mature retail market that is expanding rapidly, yet also becoming increasingly complex. Growth alone does not explain what comes next.

The way consumers in the Middle East discover, evaluate, and purchase products is changing at speed. A growing share of shoppers now begin product searches using AI-powered assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Meta AI, or Grok. Adoption is even higher among Gen Z consumers. Increasingly, AI tools are being used not only for inspiration but for comparison, decision-making, and purchase support.

This shift is not happening in isolation. As AI-powered discovery tools proliferate, consumers are gravitating toward experiences that deliver relevance rather than volume. These systems understand context, learn preferences and intent, and translate that intelligence into real-time, personalised recommendations.

Trust in these tools is accelerating. Many consumers who already rely on AI chat services for product recommendations now expect to use them when purchasing gifts or planning seasonal spending. A meaningful share are even open to letting an AI agent complete purchases on their behalf.

Importantly, this behaviour is not limited to online shopping. When visiting physical stores, a growing proportion of consumers now use AI assistants on their phones to compare prices, check reviews, or validate choices. For today’s shoppers, the journey no longer starts in one channel and ends in another. They expect fluid, conversational, always-on engagement, and increasingly, they expect brands to respond on their terms.

Retailers across the Middle East began responding decisively to this shift throughout 2025. AI agents are increasingly being deployed both in customer-facing experiences and across back-end operations.

On the front end, these agents enable more personalised and conversational shopping journeys. Drawing on browsing behaviour, purchase history, and real-time signals, they can recommend products, resolve complex questions, and guide customers seamlessly from discovery through to checkout.

Behind the scenes, agentic AI is already reshaping operations. Retailers are using autonomous systems to model inventory more precisely, dynamically adjust pricing, strengthen supply chain resilience, detect fraud in real time, and automate clearance strategies with minimal human intervention. The payoff is faster decision-making, greater efficiency, and the ability to scale without compromising experience.

Why businesses will learn to trust in 2026

If 2025 was the year enterprise AI learned to act, 2026 will be the year businesses learn to trust.

The evolution from insight-generating tools to autonomous, multi-step systems has not been without friction. Many organisations continue to wrestle with governance, data quality, security, and the balance between human oversight and machine autonomy.

Yet the momentum is undeniable. AI adoption has accelerated sharply over the past four years. The constraint is no longer technical feasibility, but organisational confidence and clarity around guardrails.

In 2026, competitive advantage will belong to organisations that can responsibly orchestrate AI agents, ground them in trusted data, and clearly define where human judgment adds value.

This shift carries particular significance for the Middle East. The region’s young, digitally native population embraces new technology quickly, while governments continue to invest heavily in AI, digital infrastructure, and innovation-led growth.

Agentic commerce gives retailers a way to meet rising expectations amid disruption. It enables personalisation at scale, operational agility, and real-time responsiveness, critical in a region where peak periods such as Ramadan or Cyber Week can determine annual performance.

Even as prices increased, shoppers demonstrated a clear willingness to spend when experiences felt relevant, personalised, and effortless. In the near future, agentic commerce will no longer be a differentiator. It will simply underpin how modern retail in the Middle East works.

The writer is the SVP/GM Middle East, Salesforce.

The sudden collapse in gold and silver prices that erased trillions of dollars in market value was not driven by a single headline or political announcement, but by a tightly wound mix of leverage, margin pressure and market structure failures that finally snapped in late January.

After months of relentless gains, precious metals reversed sharply between January 27 and February 2, triggering one of the steepest sell-offs in decades. Silver fell from highs of around $121 an ounce, while gold retreated from peaks near $5,597, dragging futures, ETFs and spot prices sharply lower.

While early media narratives focused on speculation surrounding US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh, market participants point to more technical and structural causes behind the move.

According to Vijay Valecha, chief investment officer at Century Financial, the sell-off was primarily driven by two decisive triggers: a rapid tightening of margin requirements in the US futures market and an emergency trading halt in China.

“The main triggers for the sell-off in metals were: one, an increase in margins, and two, a trading halt in China,” Valecha said.

Margin pressure created a forced unwind

In mid-January, the CME Group shifted from a fixed-dollar margin system to a percentage-based margin framework. The change significantly increased the amount of collateral required as metal prices rose, effectively capping leverage just as prices were hitting record highs.

“This increase in collateral requirements relative to the contract value effectively caps leverage as prices rise,” Valecha explained. “The capital required to maintain a single COMEX contract rose in tandem, creating an environment in which even minor price declines would trigger massive margin calls.”

Lale Akoner, global market analyst at eToro, said the rally had become increasingly vulnerable as positioning grew crowded across financial instruments. “The rally had become over-owned through bullion ETFs, leveraged futures and call-option structures that mechanically amplified upside,” she said. She added that news around Kevin Warsh potentially being nominated as Federal Reserve chair strengthened the dollar and shifted policy expectations, “triggering forced selling as liquidity thinned.”

By January 27, CME raised maintenance margins again to ensure “adequate collateral coverage” amid extreme volatility. In total, five margin hikes were implemented within ten days, creating what Valecha described as a “coiled spring” of latent selling pressure.

As prices began to dip, leveraged investors were forced to either inject fresh capital or liquidate positions, accelerating the sell-off across COMEX futures and exchange-traded funds.

China trading halt added fuel to the fire

The second major shock came from China. On January 30, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange imposed a full-day emergency trading halt on the SDIC Silver Futures Fund, mainland China’s only publicly traded fund dedicated to silver futures.

“This suspension created a liquidity trap for Chinese institutional and retail traders,” Valecha said. “They were unable to liquidate their domestic holdings and were forced to dump SLV and COMEX futures to raise cash or hedge their exposure.”

The halt effectively trapped capital onshore, forcing offshore selling to meet margin calls, amplifying pressure on already fragile futures markets.

Akoner added that China remains the key near-term variable for precious metals. “Physical demand remains firm, with Shanghai prices at a premium and strong jewellery and bar buying ahead of Lunar New Year,” she said, adding that near-term price action is likely to remain volatile “until forced selling clears.”

Was this manipulation or spoofing?

The speed and scale of the decline reignited speculation about market manipulation, spoofing and coordinated selling, especially given the long history of regulatory action in precious metals markets.

Gold and silver trade in highly financialised, derivative-heavy ecosystems, particularly on COMEX and through the London over-the-counter market linked to London Bullion Market Association. Daily paper trading volumes routinely exceed physical supply multiples over.

“In such an environment, a large sell programme from a macro fund, CTA or bank desk can trigger stop-loss clusters, margin calls and systematic trend-following models flipping short,” Valecha said. “This creates a self-reinforcing liquidation spiral.”

US regulators have previously fined traders at major banks for spoofing — the practice of placing large fake orders to influence prices before cancelling them — in precious metals futures. However, there is no confirmed evidence of coordinated wrongdoing linked to this specific crash.

“Spoofing can accelerate a move, not create the macro trend,” Valecha noted. “What we usually see is a more mundane mix of crowded trades, leverage and automated selling feeding on itself.”

Impact on investors and the Gulf region

The sharp correction reflects a leverage-driven risk reset, rather than a breakdown in precious-metal fundamentals, according to analysts cited by Bloomberg and Reuters.

Akoner said underlying demand dynamics remain supportive, particularly from central banks. “Central banks continue to anchor demand, with roughly 800 tonnes of buying expected in 2026,” she said, noting that purchases are increasingly targeted in tonnes rather than value, making demand more price-inelastic. She added that combined investor and central-bank demand averaged around 750 tonnes per quarter in 2025, well above the roughly 380 tonnes historically required to support higher prices.

Silver bore the brunt of the sell-off due to concentrated futures positioning, but gold was pulled lower as professional investors reduced exposure amid heightened volatility.

In the UAE, the global rout translated into a swift correction in local prices. Dubai gold prices fell by more than Dh100 per gram, sliding to around Dh553 per gram from Dh589, mirroring international futures markets rather than weakening physical demand.

“This type of decline often lures physical buying from jewellery consumers and long-term investors throughout the Gulf,” Valecha said.

The move also underlined a key lesson for regional investors: futures markets can become temporarily decoupled from physical supply-demand dynamics. Violent downside moves do not necessarily signal the end of a cycle.

“Typically, liquidations like this have marked a position reset rather than the end of a bull phase, particularly when physical demand has held up,” he said.

Akoner cautioned that silver may remain more vulnerable in the near term. “Silver is different, as it remains more fragile after a speculative overshoot,” she said. “Unlike gold, silver lacks central-bank dip buyers and is more exposed to positioning, seasonal effects around Chinese New Year, and shifts in industrial demand.” She added that further volatility is likely as positioning normalises, and said eToro prefers to wait for clearer signs that excess leverage has fully washed out before re-engaging.

Read: Gold, silver slide as CME hikes margins after brutal selloff

What happens next

Valecha argues the crash was ultimately a leverage-induced failure, driven largely by overextended Chinese futures positioning colliding with tighter margin rules.

“The crash in silver and gold prices from their highs is purely due to overleveraged Chinese positions, and the fundamental bullish stance on both remains,” he said.

Silver remains structurally tight, with a supply deficit of around 9 per cent in 2025, projected to widen significantly by the end of the decade. Gold continues to see strong central-bank demand, while technically both metals have bounced from key moving averages.

Looking ahead, volatility is likely to remain elevated. Rising real yields, particularly if balance-sheet reduction accelerates under a more hawkish Fed stance, could pressure commodities in the near term. But for long-term investors, sharp corrections may offer staggered entry opportunities rather than signalling the end of the precious-metals cycle.

Wealth management and financial advisory in the Middle East have changed more in the past decade than they did in the previous three. The model, with its small pool of high-net-worth individuals, serviced through highly personalised, relationship-led advisory, was both simple and profitable. Access was scarce by design, digital investment was limited if present at all, and scale was neither expected nor required.

Fast forward to today, and that model is now misaligned with the market. The region is wealthier, younger, more digital, and more diverse in its financial needs. Dubai alone has seen a 78 per cent increase in individuals with liquid investment wealth of over $1m in the last decade. The UAE welcomed close to 9,800 new millionaires last year, while Saudi Arabia added a further 2,400. At the same time, one of the largest segments of the population remains materially underserved. These are the professionals who earn well, are digitally fluent, but fall below the traditional thresholds for private banking.

It is in this gap that a new advisory persona has taken hold.

The rise of digital influence

In the UAE, 64 per cent of the population sits within the 25–54 age bracket. People spend close to three hours a day on social media. This is not a fringe audience but rather the economic core of the country. In parallel, a new generation of investors is emerging globally as part of the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, with more than $60tn expected to change hands over the next decade.

The individuals shaping early financial thinking for these audiences are no longer exclusively bank-employed advisors. They are finfluencers. Today, it’s content creators who translate investing, saving, and financial planning into relatable, lifestyle-driven narratives. And until recently, this sat outside the remit of regulated banking.

Why banks could afford to ignore finfluencers — until now

For most banks, finfluencers were previously viewed as a novelty rather than a strategic channel. The space was unregulated, advice quality was inconsistent, and the distance between a licensed advisor and a social media creator was simply too wide.

That dynamic is rapidly changing, evidenced in initiatives such as the UAE’s Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) introducing a formal licensing framework for financial content creators.

By setting a baseline of trust, the SCA is making collaboration between banks and finfluencers not just possible, but viable.

This, of course, does not signal the end of the traditional financial advisor. Complex planning, high-value portfolios, and life events requiring nuanced judgment still demand regulated expertise.

Instead, what is evolving is how trust is built and where engagement begins. Millennials and Gen X investors, for instance, often follow individual advisors across firms, demonstrating loyalty to people rather than institutions.

Licensed finfluencers operate in this same trust economy, but at scale. When aligned with regulated frameworks, they can serve as the top of the advisory funnel, educating and preparing clients long before a formal interaction occurs, effectively extending the advisory bench without compromising governance.

Why banks cannot sit this out

The economic rationale is clear. Beyond high-net-worth individuals, the region is seeing the rise of HENRYs (high earners not rich yet). Globally, by 2030, there will be around 250 million Millennial and Gen Z professionals earning over $100,000 a year. These customers will define the future of assets under management.

Banks have already started experimenting at the edges, from youth-focused accounts to prepaid cards for kids and teens. Finfluencers offer a more scalable, culturally relevant way to engage these segments early, when financial habits and service provider preferences are still being formed.

By waiving licensing fees for the first three years, the SCA framework effectively lowers the barrier to entry. Smaller ‘finfluencers’ can become licensed without prohibitive costs, allowing banks to pilot partnerships, test content formats, and measure impact without committing to large-scale programmes from day one.

Platform banking is what makes this viable

If banks have learned anything over the past decade, it is that chasing every new trend through disconnected point solutions is a reliable route to complexity and, ultimately, failure. So, this evolution will only work if they have the right operating model underneath.

Banks do not win loyalty in the AI era by bolting tools onto fragmented legacy estates. They win by treating the platform itself as the product. Platform thinking collapses silos, standardises journeys, and creates clear control points where intelligence can be applied consistently.

A modern engagement layer allows banks to own the end-to-end customer journey, from education and onboarding through to advice, servicing, and growth. Layered on top of this is an intelligence fabric, where AI augments every step: personalised content delivery, next-best-action recommendations, risk controls, and compliance monitoring. This is how incumbents regain speed without embarking on perpetual core replacement programmes.

Within such a model, finfluencers are not external anomalies. They become governed contributors within a broader ecosystem, amplifying reach while the bank retains orchestration, data integrity, and regulatory control.

A logical next step, not a leap of faith

Modernising wealth management is about more than adopting new technology. It requires a holistic approach where people, processes, and systems evolve together. By simplifying operations, integrating data and AI, and equipping advisors and support staff with the right tools, banks can create more seamless experiences for both clients and employees.

This approach not only enhances efficiency and decision-making but also positions firms to capitalise on emerging opportunities, such as the licensing of finfluencers, in a way that drives measurable impact. Ultimately, the future of wealth management will favour organisations that balance innovation with human expertise.

The writer is the regional sales director, Middle East at Backbase.

Dubai is set to reinforce its position as a global healthcare hub in 2026 as World Health Expo (WHX) in Dubai, formerly Arab Health, and World Health Expo Labs in Dubai, previously Medlab Middle East, return for what organisers say will be the largest international gathering of healthcare professionals ever staged.

Taking place simultaneously in February 2026, the twin events are expected to draw more than 270,000 professional visits from 180 countries and feature over 4,800 exhibitors, transforming Dubai into a city-wide focal point for global healthcare innovation and collaboration from February 9–13, 2026.

Read more-Dubai goes digital: WHX Tech sets stage for health innovation in AI, policy

WHX in Dubai will be hosted at its new home, the Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC) in Expo City Dubai, from February 9–12, 2026. At the same time, WHX Labs in Dubai will mark its 25th anniversary at the Dubai World Trade Centre from February 10–13, 2026.

The co-location of the two major events across different venues underscores the scale and ambition of the 2026 edition, offering attendees access to a broad spectrum of healthcare technologies, laboratory innovations, and professional education opportunities across the city.

International participation expands sharply

Interest from the global healthcare sector has reached unprecedented levels, with China, Germany, the US, the UK, and Korea committing to significantly expand their country pavilions compared to 2025. According to organisers, this surge in demand has driven a 12 per cent year-on-year increase in total floor space across both WHX in Dubai and WHX Labs in Dubai.

Several countries will also make their country pavilion debut in 2026, including Croatia, Luxembourg, and Indonesia. Meanwhile, India, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Taiwan are set to return, further strengthening the geographic diversity of the exhibitions.

A wide range of leading healthcare companies have confirmed their participation at WHX in Dubai. These include Philips, GE Healthcare, Siemens, Draegerwerk, United Imaging, and American Hospital, among others, reflecting strong engagement from global manufacturers, technology providers, and healthcare institutions.

On the laboratory side, WHX Labs in Dubai will feature prominent market leaders such as Beckman Coulter, Pure Lab, Snibe, Sysmex, and Leader Healthcare, each showcasing the latest innovations shaping diagnostics and laboratory medicine.

Dubai emerges as a global healthcare convergence point

Solenne Singer, SVP at Informa Markets, said the scale of participation highlights the growing global momentum behind both exhibitions.

“The expansion we are witnessing from countries such as China, Germany, the US, the UK, and Korea, each bringing their largest presence to date, together with the debut of pavilions from Croatia, Luxembourg, and Indonesia, reflects the extraordinary global momentum behind WHX in Dubai and WHX Labs in Dubai, and the value exhibitors place on these events,” she said.

Singer added that the diversity of participants demonstrates how the world’s healthcare community is converging in Dubai to exchange expertise, connect ideas, and build partnerships that will influence the industry for years to come. As Dubai becomes a city-wide stage for healthcare, she noted, the dialogue taking place is expected to shape future patient care and system transformation across continents.

Global healthcare market growth provides tailwinds

The expansion of WHX in Dubai and WHX Labs in Dubai aligns with broader growth trends across the global healthcare industry.

According to recent reports from Research and Markets, the global healthcare services market is projected to reach a value of $9.25trn by 2025, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of approximately 5.4 per cent.

Growth is expected to continue beyond that point, pushing the market past $11.2trn by 2029, driven by rising demand for medical services, diagnostics, healthcare infrastructure, insurance, and evolving regulatory frameworks.

At the same time, the healthcare analytics market is gaining increasing importance across laboratories, diagnostics, and hospital operations. Research from MarketsandMarkets estimates the market will grow from approximately $44.8bn in 2024 to more than $133.1bn by 2029, with annual growth rates exceeding 20 per cent as organisations seek more advanced data-driven insights.

Education, innovation, and thought leadership at the forefront

Held under the patronage of the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention, WHX in Dubai will feature nine product sectors spanning medical devices, imaging, diagnostics, and healthcare infrastructure. The event will also host six CME-accredited conferences, four certified boot camps, and three dedicated stages focused on disruptive ideas, scientific breakthroughs, and global thought leadership.

WHX Labs in Dubai will spotlight laboratory innovation under the theme “25 Years of Laboratory Innovation: Uniting Communities for Better Health.” The event will include eight product pillars, two new clinician conferences, and the 25th Annual Laboratory Management and Medicine Congress, featuring more than 250 international speakers across eight CME-accredited scientific conference tracks.

For more information or to register for the event, please visit here.

German engineering group Siemens has opened its first Digital Industries Software office in Saudi Arabia, strengthening its local presence as the Kingdom pushes ahead with Vision 2030.

The new office will allow Siemens Digital Industries Software to contract locally, accelerate customer support and work more closely with Saudi partners across sectors including automotive and mobility, energy, industrial manufacturing and smart infrastructure.

The move marks a shift from serving Saudi clients remotely to operating directly within the Kingdom, aligning with local regulatory and commercial frameworks and supporting Riyadh’s ambition to build a globally competitive digital economy.

Siemens said customers will gain access to its full Siemens Xcelerator industrial software portfolio, including design and engineering tools, product lifecycle management, manufacturing operations software and low-code application platforms. These technologies are increasingly used to deploy digital twins, simulation and artificial intelligence across industrial projects.

“Saudi Arabia’s digital economy is scaling rapidly under Vision 2030, and establishing a local Siemens Software presence allows us to serve customers faster, meet local requirements and co-innovate with partners in the Kingdom,” said Cobus Oosthuizen, vice president and managing director for the Middle East and Africa at Siemens Digital Industries Software.

The company said the local presence will support collaboration with major Saudi industrial players, including CEER, Aramco, SABIC and SAMI, while also enabling closer engagement with local talent.

Siemens Digital Industries Software will operate under Siemens Saudi Arabia, which is headquartered in Jeddah, and will support customers across Riyadh, Jeddah and Khobar. The company said it plans to scale its local team over time, working with universities and ecosystem partners to support skills development and Saudisation initiatives.

Further announcements on local leadership and organisational structure are expected in the coming months, Siemens added.