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Dubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade
The startup says it already automates over 90% of orders and inquiries for MENA manufacturers, leaving humans with only the decisions that matter.
While much of the market is still piloting AI chatbots, a Dubai-based startup called aradus says it is way past that stage. Launched in May 2026, the platform deploys AI agents to handle the operational grind of manufacturers, distributors and importers – the businesses that make and move physical goods rather than software.
The aradus pitch is based around a familiar problem: A distributor’s working day is spread across an ERP, email threads, WhatsApp groups and spreadsheets. Orders arrive in one place, shipping documents in another, and someone has to find the information, re-enter it and chase whatever is missing.
aradus sits on top of those existing systems, whether ERP, TMS or WMS, rather than replacing them. Its agents read and validate incoming documents, manage purchase orders and inventory, track shipments, follow up on missing paperwork, draft routine messages, flag discrepancies and keep records current. When a decision needs a human, the platform routes it to a Command Center with the relevant context and a recommended action already attached. The person approves; the system executes.
Across live customer workflows in the MENA region, aradus says it has automated more than 90% of customer orders and inbound inquiries. Shipment tracking alone, it estimates, avoids USD 100 to 200 in demurrage charges per container – a cost familiar to anyone importing by sea.
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“Manufacturers and distributors across different sectors deal with thousands of operational tasks to keep the goods moving every day. We built aradus to take the burden off their teams by providing an AI workforce that can execute routine operational tasks across the systems they already rely on daily,” says Karam El Assaad, Co-Founder and CEO of aradus.
Target sectors for aradus include pharma and medical, food and beverage, cosmetics and personal care, electronics, plastics and packaging, auto parts and industrial. The company’s bet is that with humans doing final approvals, its machines can handle everything else.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
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Dubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade
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