The UAE leads the world in gen AI adoption, with more than 70% of working-age adults using it regularly. That stuck with me from the Microsoft AI Apps & Agents event in Dubai last week and it’s a great basis for companies here to build from.
So where next? Two shifts came up repeatedly in conversations. First, the focus is moving from ‘enable everyone’ to outcomes tied to real, ambitious organisational goals. Second, everyone is trying to get from human-plus-assistant to teams of human-led agents.
That second shift is the hard one. Adopting an assistant asked very little of us; you just start prompting. Agent teams are different: they ask whether your organisation actually works the way you think it does. The speed and scale of AI doesn’t fix your weaknesses, it accentuates them. Whatever you haven’t got right yet, whether that’s solving real customer problems, working hypothesis-driven, or having your data and tools in order, AI will find it.
The more AI shows up in your product development lifecycle, the more you’ll feel that pain. Fixing that is the real work.