The Room Where It Happens — and Who Isn't In It

On May 18, 2026, Dubai Holding — one of the largest conglomerates in the region, spanning real estate, hospitality, retail and entertainment — announced the first enterprise-scale AI deployment in the Middle East and Africa. ^[1] Their partner? Microsoft.

Not a surprise, perhaps. Microsoft has committed $15.2 billion to the UAE through 2029. ^[2] They have nearly 1,000 employees on the ground. They have an equity stake in G42. They have been in the room, consistently, for years.

What struck me was not that Microsoft won the deal. It was the list of who wasn't there.

The EMEA model has a blind spot

Most US technology companies enter the Middle East the same way: they hire a regional lead for EMEA, base them in London or Paris, and carve out "MEA" as a sub-territory. The logic is sound at first — minimize cost, prove the market, then invest. The problem is that this model was designed for European markets, not for the Gulf.

Decisions here move from conversation to contract at a speed that surprises every European-headquartered team that encounters it for the first time. But only if you're in the room when the conversation starts. Sovereign wealth funds — G42, PIF, Mubadala, QIA — don't issue RFPs. They build relationships with people they trust, over time, through repeated in-person engagement.

What's actually at stake

The UAE leads the world in AI diffusion at 70.1% ^[3] — the highest rate of any country, according to Microsoft's Q1 2026 Global AI Diffusion Report. The country has a stated ambition to have 10,000 AI companies within five years. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 has AI at its core, backed by a sovereign wealth fund with over $900 billion under management. Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait are all accelerating.

These are not emerging markets hedging their bets on AI. They are active, funded, and moving. The question for every serious AI company is not whether MEA matters — it is whether they will be present with intention, or present by accident through someone else's infrastructure.

Anthropic's models are already being used in the UAE — via Microsoft's infrastructure. But Anthropic has no one on the ground to capture that momentum directly, build sovereign partnerships, or compete for government deals independently.

— From a strategic analysis of the MEA AI landscape, May 2026

The profile this market needs

I've spent over 20 years in commercial leadership roles across S&P 500 companies — Schlumberger, P&G and Dow Chemical — in this region. I've watched US technology companies arrive with ambition and leave with frustration, not because the market rejected them, but because they sent the wrong profile too late in the cycle.

I've seen the same pattern from two other angles as well. As an advisor to technology companies and startups entering the Gulf, I've sat across the table from founders and executives who had the right product but the wrong approach — too transactional, too impatient, too far from the room where decisions are actually made. And as a founder myself, building Maternally in a regulated and deeply human domain, I've felt firsthand what it takes to earn trust in this market before asking for adoption. The conclusion is the same from all three vantage points: presence, patience and the right relationships are not optional in MEA. They are the market entry strategy.

The opportunity is not waiting

The companies that establish genuine, senior, in-region presence in MEA over the next 12–18 months will define the AI landscape in a market of 500 million people for a decade. The Stargate UAE campus alone — a $30 billion AI infrastructure project ^[4] — will anchor Abu Dhabi as a global AI hub. The question is which AI companies will have the relationships to benefit from what it creates.

I'm writing this not as an observer, but as someone who intends to be in that room. If you're building or advising companies that are thinking seriously about MEA — I'd welcome the conversation.