News

IDC CIO Summit 2022 Is Coming To Qatar

In addition to the insightful panels, attendees will also have the chance to win exclusive prizes, take home personalized caricatures, and watch entertainment events.

Published

4 years ago

September 9, 2022

David Morelo

As the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology sector, International Data Corporation (IDC) is perfectly positioned to explore the increasing pace of innovation in Qatar and examine the country’s evolving technology landscape.

On September 27, 2022, IDC will host its IDC Qatar CIO Summit 2022 to bring together regional and global technology experts, who will discuss the hottest ICT issues inside the Al Silia grand ballroom of Grand Hyatt Doha Hotel & Villas, a 5-star luxury resort located just 6 minutes away from the Lagoona Mall and 4 km from The Pearl-Qatar island.

Here are some of the topics, discussions, panel sessions, and keynote presentations that will be on the agenda during the IDC Qatar CIO Summit 2022:

IDC Keynote: Innovating in a Digital-First World (Ranjit Rajan, Vice President of Research at IDC)
Single, Hybrid, or Multicloud? How to Craft Your Cloud Transformation with Confidence (Sriram Narasimhan, Associate Vice President of Solutions at Cloud4C)
Powering the Digital Economy with Data-First Modernization (Mohammad Al-Jallad, Chief Technology Officer & Director at Hewlett Packard Enterprise)
Panel Discussion: Talent Development & The Demand For New Skills: How Do You Structure Your Team Optimally (Alexandra Tarazi, Executive Director of Health Information and Communication Technology at Public Health Care Corporation)
How to Recover from a Ransomware Attack: Cyber Recovery Services (Hakan Dincel, Regional Manager at GlassHouse)
Combining NetOps with SecOps to Break Down Cyber Security Silos (Sammy Elyan, Business Development Manager at Fortinet)

End users can attend the event free of charge, and registrations are already open. Besides the opportunity to hear what some of the brightest and most talented people in the ICT sector have to say, attendees will also have the chance to win exclusive prizes, take home personalized caricatures, and watch entertainment events.

The IDC Qatar CIO Summit 2022 will take place ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which is scheduled to happen in Qatar from November 20th to December 18th, 2022. The 2022 FIFA World Cup is expected to attract many international visitors who have no previous experience with the plethora of new digital products and services introduced in recent years by Qatari organizations.

According to 2022 IDC research, CIOs in Qatar have rapidly digitalized operations and enabled new digital business models and ecosystem partnerships for the tournament and beyond, with 70 percent of them successfully increasing cost efficiencies as a result.

The technology implementations carried out by CIOs in Qatar include process automation, cloud migration, and the development of agile infrastructure, just to give three examples. Together, they help drive the country’s digital economy and expand its ICT ecosystem by creating a sustained demand for competitive IT services and solutions.

IDC was founded in 1964 by American businessman Patrick Joseph McGovern. Since then, its worldwide network of analysts, who offer global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries, has exceeded 1,300. You can learn more about IDC and the IDC Qatar CIO Summit on its official website.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.