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Ai MAJLiS Editions

ISSUE 14, 24 August 2026

Ai MAJLiS

Sabah al-khair — welcome to Issue #014 of Ai MAJLiS. This is the pre-LEAP edition — seven days from now, Riyadh opens its doors to 200,000+ technologists, investors, and AI builders for what promises to be the Gulf’s most commercially significant AI event in history. But before we get to the main stage, this week delivered three stories that deserve your full attention. The UAE’s Ministry of Education launched its AI Specialised Training Week today — 24,000 educators upskilling in AI starting right now. e& UAE just bundled Microsoft Copilot into broadband for SMEs in a move that brings enterprise AI to the smallest Gulf businesses. And Salesforce confirmed what Gulf business leaders already felt: expanding AI is now the number one business priority for UAE commerce leaders — above customer growth, above market expansion, above everything else. One week to LEAP. The khawa is hot. Let’s go.

This Week's Top Stories

01

[UAE] - AI Education · Breaking Today

24,000 UAE Educators Begin AI Training This Week — The Largest Annual Teacher Upskilling Push in the Gulf

This one is happening right now. More than 24,000 school leaders, teachers, advisors and support staff across the UAE began the Ministry of Education’s Specialised Training Week today — a five-day intensive programme running August 24–28, 2026, delivered through more than 80 targeted programmes and hybrid workshops.

Artificial intelligence is the centrepiece of the week. The programme has been designed to equip UAE educators with the tools, frameworks, and pedagogical approaches needed to teach in — and teach about — an AI-native world. Within the Specialised Training Week, a dedicated development pathway has been created for 1,700 school leaders, including 500 principals and 1,200 vice principals — the decision-makers who will shape how AI is embedded into UAE school environments from the first day of the 2026–2027 academic year.

24000+

Educators training in AI this week across the UAE

80+

Programmes and workshops delivered in 5 days

1700

School leaders on a dedicated AI leadership pathway

"This initiative will serve as a strategic national platform to integrate artificial intelligence, foster institutional innovation and empower our educators to lead sustainable, world-class academic environments."

— Sarah Al Amiri, UAE Minister of Education, August 24, 2026

The timing is deliberate. UAE schools reopen for the 2026–2027 academic year in days — and this is the year that the national AI curriculum goes fully live across all public schools from kindergarten through Grade 12. A thousand trained AI teachers have already been assigned across public schools. The Specialised Training Week is the final preparation layer before the entire UAE education system begins operating under an AI-integrated curriculum.

This builds on the UAE AI Camp 2026 (which completed its eighth edition this month, with 34,000+ total alumni) and the NEP-AI elite leadership programme (32 Emirati experts currently in training at TII and ADIA Lab). The UAE is now training its AI talent simultaneously at three levels: schoolchildren, working professionals, and senior government leaders.

Why it matters: The 24,000-educator training programme is the most concrete single-week evidence of the UAE’s commitment to AI-native education. For EdTech companies, AI curriculum providers, and professional development platforms, the UAE’s education system is now one of the world’s most active buyers of AI teaching tools — and it is being directed from the top of government, not driven by individual school decisions.

02

[UAE] - Enterprise AI · SMEs · Today

e& UAE Bundles Microsoft Copilot Into Business Broadband — Bringing Enterprise AI to Every UAE SME

e& UAE has launched its new Business Pro AI plans, introducing AI-powered broadband bundled with Microsoft Copilot to power the next generation of AI-ready businesses. Announced today — August 24, 2026 — this is one of the most significant moves yet to bring enterprise-grade AI within reach of small and medium-sized businesses across the UAE.

The offering combines three components into a single subscription: faster business fibre connectivity, advanced digital productivity tools, and enterprise-grade AI capabilities through Microsoft Copilot. The explicit goal is to remove the fragmented purchasing and setup complexity that has historically slowed AI adoption among SMEs — combining connectivity and AI into a single contract, a single invoice, and a simplified onboarding experience.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. Microsoft Copilot — which integrates generative AI directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams — has been primarily accessible to enterprise clients with large IT procurement budgets. Bundling it into a business broadband plan brings it to the vast majority of UAE businesses: the SME sector that accounts for 94% of all operating companies and more than 40% of UAE GDP.

94%

UAE companies that are SMEs — primary beneficiaries

40%+

SME contribution to UAE GDP

1 Subscription: broadband + productivity + AI, bundled

This launch lands in a week where Salesforce’s research confirmed that expanding AI is the #1 priority for UAE commerce leaders — surpassing customer acquisition, market expansion, and omnichannel capability. The e& and Microsoft partnership directly addresses the execution gap: leaders want to adopt AI, but SMEs in particular struggle with the procurement and implementation complexity. A broadband-bundled AI subscription collapses that barrier to a single decision.

The partnership deepens e&’s existing relationship with Microsoft, which has committed $15.2 billion to UAE AI and cloud infrastructure by 2030. UAE Pass serves 11 million users. MOHRE has processed 13 million AI transactions this year. The e& Business Pro AI plan extends that AI infrastructure reach to the UAE’s most numerous — and historically most underserved — business segment.

Why it matters: When a major national telecom bundles Microsoft Copilot into a broadband plan, AI is no longer an enterprise purchase — it becomes a utility. This is the kind of infrastructure-level move that accelerates mass adoption. For AI software companies, productivity tools vendors, and digital transformation consultants targeting UAE SMEs, the e& Business Pro AI launch signals that the addressable market just expanded significantly.

03

[UAE] - AI Commerce · Research

Salesforce: AI Expansion Is Now the #1 Priority for UAE Business Leaders — Above Growing the Customer Base

The data point that frames the entire week’s Gulf AI story: implementing or expanding AI now ranks as the top priority for UAE commerce leaders for the year ahead — ahead of growing the customer base, adapting to changing buyer behaviour, expanding omnichannel capabilities, and improving data quality. This is from Salesforce’s fourth State of Commerce report, drawing on 3,450 responses across 20 countries including the UAE, plus analysis of shopping behaviour from over 1.5 billion shoppers.

The findings go beyond sentiment. UAE businesses are already acting:

62%

UAE businesses optimising content for AI search queries

200%

Year-on-year increase in agentic search as first shopping step

48%

UAE firms with unified data see better AI & automation outcomes

62% of UAE businesses have created or optimised content for conversational and question-based queries, 61% have improved product content quality, and 58% have submitted data feeds directly to AI search platforms. These are not future plans — they are already in execution.

The agentic commerce shift is particularly striking. Globally, Salesforce found that agentic search as the starting point for shopping journeys increased 200% year-on-year, while traffic referred from AI chat platforms rose between 150% and 428% across measured quarters. UAE businesses — where AI adoption runs at 70.1% of the working-age population — are at the front of this wave.

Mohammed Alkhotani, SVP and GM of Salesforce Middle East, framed the moment precisely:

"The ambition in this country has never been the question. What I see in these numbers is execution catching up to that ambition — and that is when real transformation happens."

— Mohammed Alkhotani, SVP & GM, Salesforce Middle East, August 2026

The data integration challenge is the key bottleneck. Among UAE organisations that have unified their customer data, 48% report improved outcomes from AI and automation, 47% report better alignment between sales, marketing, and commerce teams, and 46% achieve more consistent pricing and contract application. The competitive advantage from data integration is measurable — and most UAE businesses haven’t fully captured it yet.

Why it matters: When AI tops the business priority list above customer growth, it signals a fundamental shift in how UAE executives are thinking about competitive advantage. For technology vendors, system integrators, and AI consultants: this is your market. For businesses that haven’t yet made AI their operational priority — in the UAE’s 70% AI-adoption environment — the gap between early movers and late adopters is widening by the quarter.

04

[SAUDI ARABIA] - LEAP 2026 · 7 Days Away

Seven Days to LEAP: What to Watch, What to Expect, and Why This Edition Is Different

In seven days — August 31 — the fifth edition of LEAP opens at Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Centre in Malham. Last year’s edition drew more than 200,000 attendees and opened with $14.9 billion in AI investment announcements on its first day, pushing the total value of technology-related infrastructure investment announced in Saudi Arabia since LEAP debuted past $42.4 billion. The 2026 edition is widely expected to surpass both figures.

What makes LEAP 2026 different from every previous edition is context. LEAP 2022 launched SDAIA as a national authority. LEAP 2024 produced landmark HUMAIN partnerships. LEAP 2026 arrives after:

HUMAIN announcements: Expect at least one major new infrastructure or model partnership — the pipeline includes deep relationships with Nvidia, AMD, AWS, xAI, Adobe, Qualcomm, and Cohere that are likely to expand.

ALLAM Arabic LLM: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Arabic-first large language model is in commercial deployment — LEAP is the natural showcase platform for its first enterprise integrations.

DeepFest (co-located): The dedicated AI event running alongside LEAP, with 180+ speakers focused on frontier models, Arabic AI, agentic systems, and AI governance. Less noise, more substance.

AMD’s Dr. Lisa Su on stage: Her keynote will be one of the most watched in the Gulf AI calendar — AMD is HUMAIN’s primary GPU infrastructure partner and its roadmap directly shapes Saudi AI’s next 18 months.

Sovereign AI investments: Watch for Gulf sovereign wealth funds — PIF, Mubadala, QIA — to announce new AI infrastructure commitments alongside global tech partners.

The event has settled one argument: Saudi Arabia, and increasingly the wider region, can attract capital, companies, and attention on an enormous scale. The question LEAP 2026 will answer is the harder one: can it convert that attention into the deployment, execution, and enterprise transformation that the Accenture and Deloitte research shows is still lagging behind the ambition?

The LEAP-GAIN fortnight — LEAP closes September 3, GAIN opens September 15 — is the most commercially concentrated AI window the Gulf has ever hosted. Deals announced here will shape procurement decisions across the region for 2027.

Why it matters: LEAP is not a conference for spectators. It is where the Gulf AI market gets made — where partnerships are signed, where infrastructure commitments are announced, where bilateral agreements become operational. If you have a Gulf AI strategy and you’re not in Riyadh next week, someone else is making the decisions that will affect your market for the next 12 months.

05

[UAE / QATAR / OMAN / BAHRAIN / KUWAIT] - AI Across the Gulf — Weekly Roundup

AI Moves Into UAE Sports, Qatar Counts Down to ROBOTECH, Bahrain's Law Beds In, Oman and Kuwait Advance

UAE — AI in Sports: Artificial intelligence is moving into athlete training and sports management across the UAE, helping technical and medical teams assess performance, manage recovery and identify promising competitors. The tools combine physical test results, tracking-device data and video recordings to measure movement, speed, exertion, sleep, recovery and other physiological indicators. Coaches can use the resulting data to evaluate readiness, adjust training loads and identify areas requiring improvement. This is AI moving beyond government and enterprise — into the physical performance of UAE athletes and the management of sports organisations. With UAE hosting major international sporting events through 2030, this is a growing commercial category.

Qatar: ROBOTECH 26 is now 64 days away — October 27–29, Doha, Qatar Chamber. International registrations are growing across the AI and robotics industry. This is the Gulf’s most significant AI and robotics event of Q4 2026 outside GITEX. Qatar’s GovAI Programme — with Accenture, Microsoft, Oracle, Scale AI, and Malomatia — continues active government deployment. Qatar’s Oxford Insights AI readiness score of 63.59 (third in the GCC, 54th globally) reflects an ecosystem building steadily on strong sovereign foundations.

Bahrain: The AI Act — the GCC’s first binding AI legislation, enacted this month — is now in its implementation phase. International AI companies that have been waiting for legal certainty before deploying in Bahrain now have a binding framework to work within. The Central Bank of Bahrain sandbox remains the Gulf’s most active fintech AI testing environment. Bahrain’s Oxford Insights score of 56.13 (48th globally) puts it ahead of Oman and Kuwait on AI readiness despite being the smallest GCC economy by size — a governance-over-infrastructure advantage that its AI Act now makes even more distinctive.

Oman: The AI Special Zone under Royal Decree 50/2026 continues to attract early commercial interest from international data center operators seeking a GCC alternative outside Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. Oman’s submarine cable infrastructure advantage — highest concentration of international submarine cable landings in the Middle East — remains a genuine competitive differentiator. Oxford Insights places Oman at 58.94 (61st globally).

Kuwait: The plan to double Kuwait’s data center count from five to ten is advancing, with site selection for new facilities reportedly underway. Kuwait’s Oxford Insights score of 49.86 (83rd globally) remains the GCC’s lowest — the infrastructure gap is real, the trajectory is positive. The Digital Cooperation Organisation continues to give Kuwait a multilateral platform for digital economy participation beyond its own borders.

Why it matters: Five distinct AI trajectories across five markets — UAE expanding into sports, Qatar two months from its biggest AI event, Bahrain implementing its landmark law, Oman differentiating on connectivity, Kuwait closing its infrastructure gap. LEAP next week will generate a wave of announcements that will affect all of them. Watch for how Saudi Arabia’s LEAP commitments cascade into partnerships and procurement decisions across the smaller GCC markets through Q4 2026.

GCC AI SNAPSHOT

Where Each Country Stands This Week

Fourteen editions in. And the theme of this week’s Ai MAJLiS is something we’ve been tracking since Issue #001 but that crystallised most clearly today: the Gulf is training its way into the AI era — at every level simultaneously.

24,000 educators getting AI-ready this week. Microsoft Copilot bundled into SME broadband. AI topping every business priority list. Saudi Arabia one week from the world’s most important AI investment event. The infrastructure is built. The chips are arriving. The laws are in place. Now it’s people all the way down.

Next week we’ll bring you a special LEAP edition — the deals announced, the partnerships made, and what it means for the Gulf AI market through the end of 2026. Pour an extra cup — it’s going to be a big one. Yallah, see you next Sunday. 🫖

— Your friend at Ai MAJLiS

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