By Serhat Akkılıç, Vice President – Delivery, HAVAS CX Middle East.As marketing technology executives, we often speak of the ‘valley’ – the beating heart of innovation where entrepreneurship pulses amid disruption and rapid change. Another dynamic valley is indeed emerging in the Gulf, creating a pivotal moment for marketing and communications professionals. To build brands in this rapidly transforming region, opportunities abound to further blend technology with advertising and communication and navigate the new customer experience landscape.
Macro-perspective: A thriving infrastructure and governance drive
Concrete national artificial intelligence (AI) strategies in the Gulf, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have grown from pilot schemes to cross-sectoral adoption in 2025. Initiatives such as UAE’s AI Strategy 2031 and Saudi’s Vision 2030 have spurred investment beyond infrastructure: Sovereign platforms, regulatory rigour and use cases are blooming.
For instance, a local AI revolution is under way in large language models (LLMs) such as K2 Think and Falcon Arabic. Until now, Arabic speakers wrestled with tools built for the English-speaking world. Today, regional LLMs – trained on local dialects and cultural contexts – are launching, boosting relevance and freeing organisations from linguistic dependency.
These LLM developments are by themselves critical for AI-powered locally relevant content creation, hyper personalisation and AI-reasoning embracing local contexts hidden in language derived from the local training data
What does this mean for brands and agencies?
These macro-developments are foundational pillars for what brands and agencies can build: transforming work processes and value creation through AI to optimise customer journeys. You can apply AI across many fronts in your organisation, but a business exists to create customers – so the customer experience (CX) is precisely where you must begin defining your brand’s AI transformation. This will ensure that everything else will fall into place around your customer value propositions. They are, after all, the very foundation upon which your brand stands.
Every agency brief – whether explicit or hidden – carries a CX dimension that demands a strategic tech approach. We are entering an era when AI agents support a significant part of marketing and advertising processes; some believe humans may one day leave the cycle altogether. Today, humans remain central to creative strategy, brand building and storytelling – but increasingly amplified by machines. With competitive pressures in every industry, transformation is rather urgent for brands, and it already feels late to start with AI related, FOMO-inducing news popping up every day.
The role of agencies is shifting. The brief is no longer just a campaign request, but a business problem with an AI dimension. Every stage – research, strategy, production and media planning – has an untapped AI potential that, if harnessed, delivers disproportionate value.
The required talent is also changing. We are working with hybrid professionals: Creatives who understand data, strategists fluent in the capabilities of APIs and teams facing clients skilled in tech integration. The agency is no longer a vendor but a transformation partner fluent in both brand and code. It is no longer just creative, media or digital; it requires transversal talent to solve business challenges.
Take the Havas CX network as an example: With expertise across the world, working seamlessly with the Middle East Village, it builds customer experiences with hard-core technology teams alongside creatives – engineers and poets working together to cut through the clutter.
Allure and the reality: Are we behaving like kids in A sweet shop?
With the speed of change, risks abound. The allure of new AI tools can make us behave like kids in a sweet shop, leading to messy experimentation without a clear strategy. True effectiveness will not come from adopting every new tool, but from a calculated methodology for transformation.
Both agencies and brands face a flood of startup tools promising AI miracles with slick demos. However, true transformation demands sound strategy – sometimes choosing real customer value and filtering out flashy features. Winners will resist trying every shiny object, instead anchoring decisions in CX strategy. The organisations that thrive won’t chase every breakthrough but will distinguish between meaningful progress – what we call meaningful AI – and mere novelty. Strategy, not spectacle, separates lasting transformation from temporary projects – and, ultimately, business success.
Despite challenges, the opportunity is clear: The ‘valley’ in this region is becoming the bedrock of operational, creative and competitive advantage for hybrid marcomms professionals. Infrastructure is in place. Execution is now a hygiene factor, combined with strategic vision and brand understanding. Today’s brand leaders need a calculated methodology for AI transformation, and this should be around CX – to steer clear of messy trials. They need partners who understand both brand and customer dynamics with technology mastery to guide them.
AI changes nothing by itself. It is marketers, advertisers, tech experts with business vision and hybrid professionals who will harness its power with the right partners. Those who adapt won’t just shape brand experiences; they’ll pioneer new standards of effectiveness in a region rapidly becoming the epicentre of digital change.
By Serhat Akkılıç, Vice President – Delivery, HAVAS CX Middle East
