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Saudi Arabia And UAE Are At The Forefront Of An AI Revolution
The AI market in the MENA region is expected to grow at a rate of 47.8% per year.
According to the latest reports from Research and Markets, the MENA region is making significant gains in artificial intelligence, with the AI market set to grow from $500 million in 2020 to $8.4 billion by 2026.
The UAE, in particular, shows great promise as a leader in the field of AI, with a projected growth figure of 36.2% bolstered by the government’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031, which focuses on attracting talent, funding research & innovation hubs, and developing infrastructure and data ecosystems.
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With its considerable Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia has also announced a $500 billion funding package for AI and other technologies over the next decade, launching initiatives including the Saudi Arabian Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority and the National Data Management Office.
A recent study by global consultancy firm Proviti Middle East showed that over 80% of CEOs in the region believe that AI will be critical to future business success, with over 70% of companies already investing in the technology.
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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.
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.
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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.
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