Titled "Artificial Intelligence in GCC Retail," the white paper captures insights from an exclusive roundtable hosted by Al-Futtaim that brought together leading industry players, technology providers, academics, and startups to discuss the opportunities and challenges of AI in retail.

Nearly 93% of the participants at the roundtable identified skills gaps as a major barrier to AI adoption in the retail sector, while more than 70% cited data preparation and management as significant issues. Nearly half said lack of executive support was a hindrance, while limited awareness and data privacy concerns also limit widespread adoption. If these challenges are not addressed, GCC retailers will struggle to meet the evolving expectations of their customers, failing to deliver the personalised and seamless experiences that are increasingly essential for success.

“The GCC retail sector is at a tipping point. AI is the key to delivering personalised, high-impact customer experiences — but it all begins with talent. We must invest in skills today to meet tomorrow’s expectations,” said Moza Al Futtaim, Chief AI Officer at Al-Futtaim.

Findings from the roundtable highlight the GCC’s strong ambition to become a global AI hub, enabled by significant capital resources, a digitally engaged population, and proactive government strategies. Initiatives such as the UAE's National AI Strategy 2031 and Saudi Arabia's $100 billion Project Transcendence demonstrate the commitment of these nations to becoming global AI leaders.

In the retail sector, AI is quickly emerging as the solution to increase profits and optimise processes, all while ensuring customer service remains impeccable. However, while the GCC has the ambition to deliver on these expectations, challenges including a shortage of skilled professionals is hindering progress.

Steve Liu, Associate VP for Research, at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), said: “The growing demand for AI expertise across all sectors underscores the urgent need to reimagine education. To ensure success in this new era, we must prioritise building a workforce proficient in AI technologies and equipped with the critical thinking, problem-solving, and ethical reasoning skills needed to navigate the complexities of this rapidly advancing field. This requires a commitment to fostering lifelong learning opportunities, enabling individuals at all career stages to engage in upskilling and reskilling initiatives, alongside cultivating future AI leaders.”

To unlock the full potential of AI-driven personalisation, the white paper outlines a series of key recommendations for GCC retailers across five key areas:

• Talent Development and Skills: To address the critical skills gap, GCC retailers must embrace AI-first and AI-native education, develop targeted training programmes, champion continuous learning, and partner with universities and training providers to build a skilled workforce capable of leading the AI revolution.
• Customer Engagement and Personalisation: To meet the evolving expectations of today's consumers, retailers should localise the experience by embracing the GCC's diverse cultural nuances, humanise the digital by ensuring AI enhances the human touch, personalise across channels to create a truly omnichannel journey, and earn consumer trust by being transparent about data usage.
• Technology Foundations: To build a robust foundation for AI adoption, retailers need to centralise their data by establishing a centralised data platform, invest in data infrastructure to ensure data quality, train their teams on data handling, and explore cloud-based solutions to leverage AI platforms.
• Ecosystem Collaboration: To foster innovation and accelerate AI adoption, retailers must engage with policymakers and proactively collaborate with regulators, forge strategic partnerships with other retailers, government entities, and academia, and support start-ups to foster a vibrant ecosystem.
• Ethics and Governance: To ensure responsible and sustainable AI adoption, retailers must prioritise ethics from the start by embedding ethical considerations into their AI strategy, establish an ethics committee to create a dedicated internal regulator, mitigate algorithmic bias by implementing adaptive controls, and integrate security and ethics by collaborating with security teams.

The white paper highlights that while AI offers immense opportunities for innovation, it's the human touch that will ultimately define success in the GCC retail sector. By embracing a customer-centric approach, fostering ethical AI practices, and investing in talent development, retailers can leverage technology to build stronger relationships and deliver truly exceptional, human-centric experiences that resonate with their customers.

Explore the full white paper here: White Paper: Artificial Intelligence in GCC Retail – Al-Futtaim

Ironic as it may sound, you don’t have to step outside to find beautiful outdoor scenery. Just look at your desktop wallpaper. It probably features the stunning geysers at Yellowstone Park, the green plains of Switzerland, the vast Arabian desert, or some other natural wonder.

Building on this irony, Al-Futtaim IKEA chose to showcase its outdoors collection through a digital campaign. IKEA launched ‘Iconic Outdoors’, a fun way to make your desktop fresh, outdoorsy, and absolutely adorable. Al-Futtaim IKEA transformed its entire outdoor collection—featuring hundreds of products—into downloadable icons, available on their website. Users could replace those messy folder icons and furnish their scenic wallpaper with the IKEA Outdoor Collection.

The campaign launched with three separate videos furnishing different wallpapers: a desert campout, a beach, and a grassy plain. Each video brought these landscapes to life using IKEA product icons fitting for the setting.

The experience is fun, interactive, and simply delightful. But most importantly, it puts the Al-Futtaim IKEA products in the hands of potential customers. By picking, mixing, and matching different items, users create outdoor scenes that spark inspiration—scenes they might replicate in their own gardens and patios.

To engage people on social media, Al-Futtaim IKEA uploaded its outdoor icons on GIPHY, allowing users to create virtual setups on their Instagram stories. They also launched a competition inciting people to join in. Three winners had their setups featured on digital screens in the IKEA stores.

As a digital-first campaign, Iconic Outdoors meets customers where they spend much of their time: at their laptops. It took the focus away from shopping and made it about designing something unique and personal.

So, once you’ve turned your desktop into a cozy retreat, remember to shut your laptop and step outside to enjoy the great weather.

Memac Ogilvy will deliver the full suite of PR and influence services, including campaign development and execution, press office management, and thought leadership programs. The mandate also covers developing and executing influencer engagement strategies across the UAE, Qatar, and Oman. The win follows a highly competitive pitch process, underlining Memac Ogilvy’s position as IKEA's trusted communications partner in the region.

With the renewed advertising contract, Memac Ogilvy will also play a fundamental role in driving the company's growth across the three markets through strategic and creative campaigns and activations. The agency will focus on enhancing IKEA’s brand equity by setting new creative benchmarks in the retail sector and contribute to enhancing its commercial performance across online and offline channels.

Memac Ogilvy has consistently delivered award-winning creative campaigns for IKEA, including "Time to Take What's Theirs", a pet campaign, "Iconic Outdoors," and many others.

With the pet care sector in the UAE soaring to a valuation of $300 million and approximately 1.5 million pet "parents" residing in the country, according to insights from the recent Pet World Arabia exhibition in Dubai, the significance of pets in homes is undeniable.

This new trend brings along new situations at home. Because on top of the unquestionable love four-legged buddies give in homes, they often also mess them up. IKEA decided to tap into those little accidents that every pet owner can relate to.

In line with IKEA’s global strategy, IKEA Al-Futtaim has launched a campaign portraying everyday products smashed by cute pets. Through "Don’t worry, you can afford it," the brand reassures the audience, implying there’s not much to worry about because getting a new one at such an affordable price makes it an easy fix.

The campaign showcases common items pets might knock over: a CHIAFRÖN plant pot, a FÄRGRIK mug, a KÄRLEKSGRÄS cushion, and a STILREN vase. It features dogs and cats, the most popular pets in the region.

Carla Klumpenaar, GM of Marketing, Communication & Interior Design, highlights, "For the past few years, we have noticed a growth of pets in households in the region, and we wanted to introduce this topic through this campaign for the first time. Over the next few days, we will also launch a collection of household products for pets".

The campaign, created by the creative boutique INGO Hamburg, has been published in different media throughout the region.

In the words of INGO’s Global CCO, Tobias Ahrens, "We are excited about this campaign, which, on one hand, brings the unskippable cuteness of pets, and on the other hand, challenges marketing conventions by showing the products damaged – an honest story that refreshes the usual IKEA price communication style.”

At a signing ceremony this month attended by the Vice Chairman and CEO of Al-Futtaim Group, Omar Al Futtaim, and SAP global CEO Christian Klein, Al-Futtaim Group officially adopted RISE with SAP, a customized solution to ensure a quick and seamless transition of mission-critical systems to the cloud. Once implemented, all of Al-Futtaim Group’s business systems will be fully integrated into the cloud, with upgrades enabling the company to leverage the benefits of new technologies and the efficiencies arising from automated and streamlined business processes.

Himanshu Shrivastava, Chief Technology Officer at Al-Futtaim Group, said at the signing ceremony, “This partnership is a testament to Al-Futtaim Group’s commitment to driving innovation and staying at the forefront of our industry. In line with our continued pursuit of excellence, the comprehensive SAP solution we are implementing incorporates sustainability metrics, industry best practices, extensibility, analytics, and business process intelligence. We will have full visibility over all areas of operations, supported by data-driven insights and the flexibility necessary to respond with agility to changes in customer needs and market fluctuations. Importantly, the solution will also enable enhanced customer, partner, and employee experiences, with greater engagement and consistency across touch points.”

Among the new SAP cloud solutions Al-Futtaim Group will implement is SAP S/4HANA, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that enables automation of business processes, reduces total cost of ownership, provides 360-degree visibility over all operations, and is adaptable for multiple industries' needs to ensure accurate reporting and compliance. Benefits include end-to-end, integrated finance capabilities, as well as enhanced procurement, supply chain and inventory management; seamless and personalized customer journeys; and self-service capabilities.

Other existing SAP solutions, such as SAP SuccessFactors for human resource management, are being upgraded in the cloud to be used across all areas of Al-Futtaim Group’s business. In the case of SuccessFactors, this approach enables 360-degree views of Al-Futtaim Group’s extensive regional workforce, a more efficient compensation model, and the activation of gamification and well-being features to enhance employee engagement. The SAP and Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure will also enable non-SAP solutions to be integrated within the SAP framework.

Zakaria Haltout, Managing Director for SAP UAE, commented, “With this partnership, Al-Futtaim Group is positioning itself as a transformational leader in adopting new technologies to deliver better value to its customers, employees and partners. Leveraging SAP’s expertise in regional automotive, financial services, real estate, retail, and health markets, and with Microsoft Azure’s comprehensive cloud infrastructure, we are confident this partnership will enable Al-Futtaim Group to achieve operational excellence and drive continued success for the company.“

Also commenting on the collaboration, Yvonne Chebib, Global Partner Solutions lead, Microsoft UAE said, “We are delighted to be working closely with Al-Futtaim Group and SAP to enable the success of this venture. By leveraging the expertise and cutting-edge technology offered by SAP and the trusted cloud infrastructure of Microsoft Azure, Al-Futtaim Group is ensuring it has a clear execution roadmap for the next level of business transformation and further driving value through the interoperability benefits”

George Kotsolios, head of PR at Al Futtaim Group’s marketing and communications agency GMASCO, has released a book under the title Back to the Future of Marketing, and in the context of the upcoming World Cup. “For a number of years, i’ve been writing short posts pertaining mainly to the PR industry, which i observed for the last twenty years or so. I started as a journalist in my career well over 20 years ago; and so,  i started piecing together several blogs that i had written over the years,” explains Kotsolios on the backdrop of his book launch, adding: “the main argument in the book is that because of the technological advances and social media proliferation, if PR professionals and marketers stay still and do not decide to proactively evolve , we will become redundant in the future.”

Drawing on his experience in journalism and PR – and on his imagination – Kotsolios’ book looks at the evolution of the communications and marketing industry using a football analogy, “because i started as a sports journalist; so i created a fictitious ‘Team Marketing’. I am putting myself in the position of the coach that led the team in the World Cup 2010, picking out my 11 players – each player standing for a discipline within the marketing and PR fields –  for that year. I explain why, for example, i’d have PR as a goalkeeper. But for the 2014 World Cup, i made several changes to my team-picking process based on how PR has evolved over the last four years. And then, i am imagining the ideal team for the World Cup 2022,” he explained.

Kotsolios, however, is keen on highlighting the marketing campaign he’s built around the promotion and launch of his book; he’s developed “The Dubai Bookmark Initiative”, a social media-centric community movement  with the aim of promoting book-reading habits, and establishing a UAE National Book-reading Day. “In line with this initiative, i have received support from Al Noor Training Center for children with special needs. I am helping Al Noor create awareness in the UAE about the fact that special needs children are capable of reading books, contrary to popular belief,” he says.

The CSR and promotional campaign, which started on social media, has gradually moved to mainstream media, garnering the support of Arabic dailies. Until end of July, proceeds made through the sales of Kotsolios’ book will be going into Al Noor’s literacy programs. Back to the Future of Marketing is available on Amazon.com in both e-book ($3.99) and print ($10) formats.

More information about the book can be found here.