News

Snapchat Opens Qatar Office To Deepen Gulf Presence

The new Doha base anchors Snap’s regional expansion as Qatar steps up its digital and creative drive.

Published

7 months ago

October 28, 2025

snapchat opens qatar office to deepen gulf presence

Snapchat has opened a new office in Doha’s Msheireb district, marking its first base in Qatar and a stronger foothold in the Gulf. Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel joined Sheikh Jassim bin Mansour bin Jabor Al Thani, Director of the Government Communications Office (GCO), at the launch.

The move plants Snap at the center of a market where engagement runs deep. Snapchat users in the Gulf open the app more than 45 times a day, while about 85% use its augmented reality features daily. From the new Doha hub, Snap aims to work more closely with creators, entrepreneurs and local partners as Qatar pushes ahead with its sweeping Vision 2030 goals.

“We welcome Snap Inc.’s expansion in Qatar and its continued contribution to the country’s digital and creative economy,” said Sheikh Jassim, adding: “The office is an important step in strengthening our strategic partnership, which began three years ago and has already achieved significant milestones, particularly in development, training, and support for the creative industry”.

The opening follows Snap’s memorandum of understanding with the GCO signed during Web Summit Qatar in February. That deal paved the way for the country’s first Augmented Reality Academy, designed to train new creators and developers in immersive tech. The program will be open to young innovators across the region, part of a broader push to build skills that feed into Qatar’s growing creative economy.

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Hussein Freijeh, Snap’s Vice President for MENA, said the company is “deepening its roots in a market that celebrates creativity and culture”. The new base also expands opportunities for brands and advertisers looking to reach a digitally active audience through more localized storytelling and AR experiences.

Global platforms are increasingly circling Qatar’s fast-growing digital economy, drawn by its investment in creative industries and infrastructure. For Snap, the Doha office signals a long-term bet on one of the region’s most connected markets — and a platform to anchor future growth across the Gulf.

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.

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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.