News

SMBs Can Now Join TikTok’s First Digital Marketing Academy In MENA

The digital marketing academy is the first virtual education platform of its kind in the MENA region, and it was created from the ground up to address the needs of SMBs.

Published

5 years ago

June 9, 2021

Joanna Melki

smbs can now join tiktok's first digital marketing academy in mena

In their never-ending race to compete with large enterprises, SMBs must take advantage of every tool that can give them even the slightest competitive advantage, and marketing their products and services on social media networks such as TikTok is a great example.

The only problem is that small and medium-sized businesses rarely have the resources to hire in-house marketing experts who know how to navigate popular social media networks. Now, TikTok’s business arm is offering all SMBs in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT) region a cost-effective alternative in the form of its new digital marketing academy.

The digital marketing academy is the first virtual education platform of its kind in the MENA region, and it was created from the ground up to address the needs of SMBs. Those who decide to join it will complete a five-week training program consisting of five distinct courses that cover everything how TikTok works to advertising best practices.

“From introducing participants to the TikTok app to demonstrating how they can sign up to the Self-Serve ads, to best practice on optimizing their content and performance, to finally creating their first campaign, this module will provide participants with a shortcut to unlocking the potential of TikTok for their business,” explains Shant Oknayan, TikTok’s general manager of global business solutions MENA.

Also Read: How To Use TikTok Auto Captions To Make Your Videos More Accessible

After completing the entire course, participants will receive an SMB TikTok Pro digital badge. Although of little value to small businesses that have no intention of showing off their newly acquired skills to others, the digital badge is a boon to agencies, which may use it to promote their services.

You can learn more about TikTok’s first digital marketing academy in the MENA region 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

6 days 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.