Tech Features

How the Middle East Moved Beyond Followers to Build Brands

Published

1 month ago

May 13, 2026

Yet another compelling new piece by Mariam Abouzeid, Marketing Manager, MEA at Nothing Technology

There is a $771 million evolution happening at the center of the Middle East marketing industry. For the past ﬁve years, the global narrative around inﬂuencer marketing was built on a ﬂawed premise that reach equals inﬂuence. Brands in New York and London debated whether the creator economy was a bubble, while marketers obsessed over vanity metrics and ﬂeeting viral moments. In the GCC, we stopped debating and started building. The inﬂuencer marketing market in the GCC is valued at $315.5 million in 2025 and is projected to reach $771.6 million by 2032. But the real story is not the money. It is the maturity.

Having overseen communications strategies that collectively generated billions of impressions across the region, I have watched Dubai and Riyadh transform from emerging markets into the global vanguard of creator led brand building.

The signals are clear. The Middle East is not catching up to the global inﬂuencer economy. We are leading it. We are doing it by fundamentally reprioritizing how creators are used, moving them out of the traditional PR umbrella and embedding them as the ultimate engine for mass awareness and deep brand trust. When you look at brands like Huda Beauty, which generates over $75 million a year through the strategic ampliﬁcation of creator content, you see the blueprint for the future. Huda Kattan built a billion dollar empire right here in Dubai not by treating inﬂuencers as a PR add on, but by embedding them into the core architecture of the brand. This creator ﬁrst model has paved the way for a new generation of Middle East beauty empires, from Youmna Khoury’s Youmi Beauty to Aliona Shcherba’s Aliona Cosmetics, proving that the region is no longer just consuming global beauty trends. It is exporting them.

The Mass Awareness Machine

Before we examine where the Middle East is going, it is worth understanding the foundation it has built. Inﬂuencers are the most powerful mass awareness engine ever created. In a region where the GCC is on track to have 263,000 active inﬂuencers in 2025, brands have access to a decentralized media network that no television buy or billboard campaign can replicate. When 60 percent of Saudi users and 48.1 percent of UAE users use social networks as their primary tool for researching brands and products, creators are not supplementing the media plan. They are the media plan. According to EMARKETER, US social network ampliﬁed content ad spending is projected to match creator sponsored content revenues at $14.15 billion in 2027 before surpassing them in 2028. Brands are about to spend more money boosting creator content than they pay

creators to make it. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, this strategy is already taking hold. Ounass, the Middle East premier luxury e-commerce platform, provides a perfect example of this evolution. They do not just pay inﬂuencers for one oﬀ posts. They use data driven insights to identify top performing creators, then amplify that content through targeted performance marketing, blending emotional storytelling with rational product attributes to build a luxury narrative that resonates deeply with Gulf consumers and drives measurable return on ad spend/ But here is where the Middle East diverges from the global playbook. While Western brands are still treating inﬂuencers purely as awareness tools, the GCC has moved further up the value chain.

The QSR Reality Check: Awareness vs Consideration

To understand this shift, look no further than the highly competitive food and dining sector in the Middle East. This is a category where inﬂuencer marketing has been deployed more aggressively than almost any other. At the mass market end, brands like Americana operating KFC and Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Papa Johns, and Subway pour millions into inﬂuencer campaigns to stay top of mind. Yet AlBaik, the beloved Saudi homegrown champion, topped YouGov KSA QSR Rankings 2026 with a consideration score exceeding 50 percent, a position built on decades of genuine consumer love, not just inﬂuencer hype. Global giants McDonald’s and KFC follow at 26.9 percent and 23.2 percent consideration respectively, despite their enormous social media presence.

At the premium end, the contrast is even sharper. Shake Shack, Five Guys, P.F. Chang’s, Joe & The Juice, and homegrown hero SALT have all built their GCC presence on the back of creator driven content, using beautiful food photography, viral reels, and inﬂuencer queues around the block. Nobu and Zuma in Dubai have become synonymous with aspirational lifestyle content, their dining rooms perpetually ﬁlled with creators documenting every dish.

Consider the rise of % Arabica. The Kyoto born coﬀee brand has grown into a $1.3 billion global giant with virtually zero traditional marketing. In the UAE, its minimalist, highly aesthetic stores were designed speciﬁcally for the Instagram and TikTok era. The brand relies entirely on organic discovery, user generated content, and inﬂuencer footfall to drive its massive queues. It is the ultimate example of a brand built entirely on the back of social media awareness and creator aesthetics .

The stories of FIX Dessert Chocolatier and Bi Laban are perhaps the most instructive. FIX Can’t Get Knafeh of It chocolate bar became a global social media phenomenon in 2024 and 2025, generating a staggering 1,259 percent year over year explosion in social conversations. The viral awareness was undeniable, leading to $22 million in sales at

Dubai Duty Free in the ﬁrst quarter of 2025 alone 10 . But as the Ehrenberg Bass Institute for Marketing Science noted, the viral fad diluted the brand identity, turning a speciﬁc product into a generic design brief copied by everyone 11 . Similarly, Bi Laban became a regional sensation engineered through inﬂuencer seeding and relentless creator buzz. The queues were real. But when the hype faded, the business fundamentals were exposed. Viral awareness, it turned out, is not a substitute for operational excellence, quality consistency, and genuine consumer loyalty.

The data reveals a stark reality. Hype does not seamlessly translate into habit. While 53 percent of Saudi residents eat fast food weekly, their ultimate choice of where to dine is driven by cleanliness at 48 percent and price at 46 percent, operational realities that no inﬂuencer can fake 12 . Inﬂuencers drive the initial discovery, cited by 61 percent of consumers as their source for ﬁnding new spots, but they are highly ineﬃcient at closing the sale 12 .

The Cost of Misalignment: When Inﬂuence Breaks Brands

If the Middle East is learning how to build brands through creators, the global market has provided the ultimate cautionary tales of what happens when inﬂuence is misaligned with brand equity. The collapse of the Adidas and Yeezy partnership remains the most expensive inﬂuencer marketing failure in history. Adidas tied its cultural relevance to a single, highly volatile creator. When the relationship imploded, Adidas posted its ﬁrst annual loss in 30 years, warning of a $1.3 billion revenue hit due to unsold inventory 13 . The lesson for regional brands is clear. Renting cultural relevance from a creator without building your own brand equity is a catastrophic ﬁnancial risk.

Similarly, Pepsi infamous Kendall Jenner campaign remains the textbook example of scripted authenticity failing spectacularly 14 . Pepsi paid a massive premium for Jenner reach, assuming her follower count would automatically translate into cultural resonance. Instead, the tone deaf execution sparked a global backlash, proving that massive awareness without genuine cultural alignment actively damages brand trust. These global failures have taught Middle East marketers a crucial lesson. Awareness without alignment is dangerous. Inﬂuence must be anchored in trust, not just reach.

The Beauty Blueprint: From Awareness to Empire

If the F&B sector illustrates the limits of viral conversion, the beauty and luxury sectors provide the blueprint for the great reprioritization. Huda Kattan built Huda Beauty into a billion dollar empire using this exact logic. She did not treat inﬂuencers as a direct sales channel. She treated them as a massive awareness engine. Today, Huda Beauty generates over $75 million a year through paid media ampliﬁcation of creator content. The brand understood early that organic inﬂuencer

posts build top of funnel awareness, but it is the paid ampliﬁcation of that content that drives actual scale.

Similarly, Mona Kattan fragrance brand Kayali has mastered this shift. Kayali does not rely on inﬂuencers to push promo codes. It uses them to build cultural relevance and awareness around scent layering. The result? According to Sephora merchant partners, Kayali now has one of the highest repurchase rates in the entire fragrance category globally 15 . The brand uses inﬂuencers to get the consumer attention, but relies on product quality and brand equity to secure the conversion and the repeat purchase.

This blueprint is now being replicated by the most powerful creators in the GCC. Kuwaiti inﬂuencer Noha Nabil leveraged her massive regional following to launch Noha Nabil Beauty, building a brand deeply rooted in Arab culture and diversity that earned her a spot on the Forbes Women Behind Middle Eastern Brands list 16 . Similarly, Emirati superstar Balqees Fathi transformed her 13 million Instagram followers into a luxury cosmetics empire with Bex Beauty, merging global innovation with speciﬁc GCC beauty ideals 17 .

These founders understand that inﬂuence is the spark, but operational excellence and cultural alignment are the engine.

The Trust Capital of the World

This is why the Middle East is winning. Brands here have realized that inﬂuencers are not a shortcut to conversion. They are the architects of trust. According to the 2026 Edelman

Trust Barometer, global trust is contracting inward. People are retreating into insular, values aligned circles, making it harder than ever for mass corporate messaging to penetrate 18 . Yet, the UAE topped the 2026 Edelman Trust Index globally with a score of 80 out of 100, up eight points from the previous year 19 .

Why? Because brands in the UAE and Saudi Arabia understood early that trust cannot be broadcast. It must be brokered. As Edelman research highlights, in an insular world, trust is built and scaled by creators who act as cultural mediators 18 .

This is backed by new academic research. A 2026 study from Imperial College Business School on inﬂuencer authenticity found that the era of renting credibility through one oﬀ posts is over 20 . Professor Omar Merlo research proves that when brands treat inﬂuencers as long term partners rather than transactional media channels, they move from a transactional to a transformational relationship with consumers 20 .

The Global Validation: Unilever Pivot

The model pioneered in the Middle East is now being adopted by the world largest advertisers. In early 2026, Unilever made a declaration that validated everything regional marketers have been building. The FMCG giant shifted 50 percent of its total digital advertising budget away from traditional corporate ads and directly into social media and creators 21 . By April 2026, that commitment had translated into a network of 300,000 inﬂuencers actively promoting Unilever brands globally 22 .

Unilever CMO Leandro Barreto described the strategy as building Desire at Scale, using creators to embed brands authentically in culture 22 . This is exactly what the Middle East has been doing for years. When a global giant like Unilever restructures its entire marketing apparatus to match the creator ﬁrst model, it proves that inﬂuencer marketing has oﬃcially graduated from the PR department to become the central nervous system of modern brand building.

The Academic Consensus on Brand Value

The data is clear, and the academic consensus is catching up to what we already know in the GCC. A recent Harvard Business Review study on how brand associations drive customer spending found that what consumers spontaneously think about a brand matters far more than what they agree with on a rating scale 23 . The research proves that brand equity is built through deep, authentic associations over time.

Furthermore, as McKinsey 2026 State of Marketing report highlights, branding has returned as the number one priority for marketing leaders globally 24 . CMOs view branding ability to drive distinctiveness and embody a clear value proposition as critical to building competitive diﬀerentiation 24 . In the Middle East, we know that the fastest, most authentic way to build that distinctiveness is through the voices of trusted creators.

The Way Forward: Leading the Next Era

The next wave of global marketing innovation will not come from Silicon Valley or Madison Avenue. It is coming from Dubai and Riyadh. According to EMARKETER, 57 percent of ad buyers globally say inﬂuencer ads and partnerships are their top investment priority for 2026. The world is ﬁnally waking up to the power of the creator economy, but the Middle

East is already living in its future.

We have moved past the vanity metrics. We have moved past the debate over whether inﬂuencers belong in PR or paid media. We have built an ecosystem where creators are the undisputed architects of mass awareness, brand trust, and deep consideration.

The Middle East audience is among the most digitally connected and brand aware anywhere in the world, and it expects marketing strategies that reﬂect that level of sophistication. Inﬂuencer marketing is not just growing here. It is setting the global standard. The brands that recognise this will not just win the region. They will lead the world.

Tech Features

ENGINEERING INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION: PREPARING YOUNG WOMEN FOR FUTURE TECH LEADERSHIP

Published

11 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Integrator Web-Admin

Dr Esraa Khatab, Assistant Professor at the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai

As we celebrate International Women in Engineering Day (INWED), attention is increasingly focused on how to prepare young women not only to participate in engineering but to lead its future. In a world shaped by artificial intelligence, sustainability challenges, and rapid digital transformation, education must go beyond technical instruction. It must cultivate what we can call engineering intelligence, a combination of technical expertise, problem-solving ability, creativity, and leadership confidence.

For young women, this preparation is most effective when education is intentionally designed to inspire, support, and position them as future innovators and decision-makers.

Inspiring Young Women Through Meaningful Learning

Engaging young women in engineering begins with making learning relevant and purposeful. When engineering is connected to real-world challenges, such as improving healthcare systems, designing sustainable cities, or developing climate solutions, it resonates strongly with students who are motivated by impact.

Project-based learning plays a key role here. When young women work on designing smart applications, building prototypes, or solving community challenges, they begin to see themselves as capable engineers contributing to society. Thes experiences move engineering from an abstract concept to a meaningful pathway where their ideas matter.

Initiatives such as the UAE’s “One Million Arab Coders” and international programs like “Girls Who Code” have successfully introduced thousands of young women to coding, AI, and digital innovation. These initiatives are powerful not just because of the skills they teach, but because they create an early sense of belonging in technology-driven environments.

Mentorship: Unlocking Potential and Building Confidence

For young women, mentorship is a transformative element of engineering education. It provides not only guidance but also reassurance, helping students navigate academic and career pathways with clarity and confidence.

Connecting young women with mentors, whether through universities, industry partnerships, or outreach programs, offers them valuable insights into emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and renewable energy. These relationships make career paths more tangible and achievable.

In classroom settings, mentorship can be embedded into learning through project collaborations and industry engagement. When young women receive feedback from

professionals, present their ideas, and engage in real-world problem-solving, they begin to develop both confidence and professional identity.

Mentorship also nurtures leadership. By observing and interacting with experienced professionals, young women gain exposure to decision-making, teamwork, and innovation processes, essential components of future tech leadership.

Expanding Opportunities Through STEM Outreach

STEM outreach initiatives are vital in reaching young women early and sustaining their interest in engineering pathways. Programs that focus on hands-on, creative engagement, such as robotics competitions, coding bootcamps, and innovation labs, are particularly effective in building confidence and curiosity.

These initiatives create safe and encouraging environments where young women can experiment, take risks, and learn collaboratively. Importantly, they shift the narrative from simply learning technology to actively creating it.

Digital platforms have further expanded opportunities for young women in engineering. Virtual labs such as “MIT OpenCourseWare” and interactive simulations (e.g., PhET) allow learners to experiment and build practical skills remotely, with research showing strong gains in engagement and motivation. Online hackathons, including initiatives like the “UAE InnovAIte AI” Hackathon, provide young women with collaborative spaces to design real-world solutions using emerging technologies. At the same time, AI-powered tools such as “Khan Academy’s Khanmigo” offer personalized guidance, helping learners build confidence through continuous, self-paced support.

Together, these platforms create flexible and inclusive pathways that enable young women to actively engage, experiment, and grow within today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape. By introducing young women to emerging technologies early, outreach programs help them build familiarity and confidence in fields that will define the future of work.

Encouraging Young Women to Lead in Emerging Fields

Emerging engineering domains, such as artificial intelligence, smart systems, biotechnology, and sustainable energy, offer significant opportunities for innovation and leadership. Encouraging young women to explore these areas requires intentional effort within education systems.

This can be achieved through:

Early integration of advanced topics: Introducing AI, data science, and sustainability concepts at foundational levels.
Interdisciplinary approaches: Encouraging young women to apply engineering skills in healthcare, environmental science, and social innovation.
Experiential learning: Providing opportunities for internships, research projects, and innovation challenges in emerging fields.

These experiences allow young women to build not only technical expertise but also the confidence to navigate complex, real-world challenges. They begin to see themselves as contributors to cutting-edge developments, rather than observers.

Building Confidence and Leadership Identity

For young women to thrive in engineering, education must also focus on building confidence and leadership skills. This includes creating environments where their voices are heard, their ideas are valued, and their contributions are recognized.

Encouraging young women to lead team projects, present their work, and participate in competitions helps them develop essential soft skills such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.

Representation also plays an important role. Highlighting the achievements of women engineers and innovators, both globally and within local communities, reinforces the message that leadership in engineering is both attainable and expected.

Importantly, leadership development should be embedded into the learning journey. Innovation challenges, entrepreneurship programs, and community-based projects provide platforms for young women to take initiative and drive impact.

Looking Ahead: Empowering Young Women to Shape the Future

The future of engineering will be defined by those who can think creatively, solve complex problems, and lead with vision. Preparing young women for this future is not just about education, it is about empowerment.

By combining meaningful learning experiences, strong mentorship, expanded outreach, and opportunities in emerging technologies, we can create an ecosystem where young women thrive as engineers and leaders.

As we celebrate INWED, the focus is clear: to ensure that young women are equipped not only with skills, but with the confidence and ambition to lead. When this happens, they do more than contribute to technological advancement, they shape it.

Tech Features

FIVE WAYS UAE WORKFORCE PLANNING IS CHANGING IN 2026

Published

4 days ago

June 19, 2026

Integrator Web-Admin

The UAE is entering a more complex phase of workforce growth. Hiring momentum remains strong, with the country recording a Net Employment Outlook of 60% for Q2 2026, placing it among the strongest employment markets globally. Yet the main challenge for companies is whether their employment structures, immigration planning, compliance systems, and HR leadership can support growth at scale.

Aethra Advisory, a UAE-based global hiring strategy and mobility architecture firm, outlines five shifts companies should prepare for as compliance, immigration, and HR become more connected.

HR is becoming workforce architecture

HR can no longer be treated as an administrative function focused only on recruitment, onboarding, contracts, and employee relations. In 2026, HR leaders are expected to help design the workforce model itself. That includes where a company hires, which employment structures it uses, how talent moves across borders, and where compliance risk may appear. A hiring decision is now linked to visa eligibility, payroll structure, sponsorship, worker classification, relocation timelines, and long-term operating needs.

Many companies still hire first and address structure later. The consequences often emerge months afterwards, when employment models become costly, difficult to manage, or unable to support growth.

AI is entering recruitment and workforce planning

Companies are using AI to screen CVs, match candidates to roles, automate outreach, schedule interviews, assess skills, and generate workforce insights. Used well, it can make hiring faster and more consistent, especially in high-volume recruitment environments.

A 2025 field experiment involving around 37,000 applicants found that 54% of candidates assessed through an AI-assisted recruitment pipeline passed the final human interview, compared with 34% of candidates assessed through a traditional pipeline. However, AI does not replace human judgement. Companies still need clear hiring criteria, documented decision-making, oversight and an understanding of how recommendations are generated and reviewed.

Companies are moving into global talent systems

Many companies make the UAE a base for regional and international expansion due to its business-friendly policies and strategic location. Local companies are hiring across borders, global firms are entering the UAE, and leadership teams are being built across multiple jurisdictions. In fact, the cross-border workforce and migration solutions market is projected to reach $11.37 billion by 2033, growing at an annual rate of 11.8%.

For employers, hiring can no longer be treated as a local HR process. Companies must make deliberate decisions about how they enter new markets and engage talent. Some may use an Employer of Record to hire quickly, while others may establish a local entity to gain greater control. In some cases, relocating and sponsoring employees will be the right approach or engaging contractors or building a longer-term market entry structure may be more suitable. Each route carries different implications for cost, compliance, operational control, and future scalability.

Employment models are becoming more hybrid

As companies scale, informal arrangements become harder to manage. A single UAE business may now have locally sponsored employees, remote workers, consultants, contractors, relocating workers, etc. This gives companies more flexibility, but also creates operational risk when obligations are not understood from the start. Worker classification, payroll treatment, benefits, visa eligibility, contract terms, management control, and termination rules can vary depending on how a person is engaged. Employers need clear structures defining employment status, work location, applicable law, and how each relationship is governed.

Regulation is influencing hiring decisions

In the UAE, hiring depends on more than finding the right candidate. Companies need the right regulatory setup before they can move quickly. Licensing gaps, unclear sponsorship routes, incomplete documentation, or a mismatch between the role and the employment structure can still delay a strong hire.

This makes compliance and immigration planning an early hiring priority. Companies should understand the requirements before entering a market, confirming a hire, or committing to a relocation timeline.

Tech Features

Networks Must Evolve Before AI Can Scale

Published

2 weeks ago

June 11, 2026

Integrator Web-Editor

Rohit Chowdhary, Head of Advanced Consulting Services at Nokia, sat down with The Integrator to share insights into the company’s vision for enabling the AI supercycle. He outlined how Nokia’s end-to-end portfolio spans everything from AI-ready connectivity and energy-efficient 800G data centre networking to intelligent, self-optimising home Wi-Fi experiences powered by AI.

A key focus of the discussion was Nokia’s shift from strategic advisory to real-world execution through its dedicated Automation Excellence Practice, helping operators translate ambitious transformation roadmaps into measurable outcomes. The conversation also highlighted the growing importance of integrated, intelligent and secure networks that can support rising AI workloads, eliminate infrastructure bottlenecks and unlock tangible business value, while maintaining the highest standards of security, privacy and resilience

Could you begin by telling us about your role at Nokia and the journey that brought you here?

I lead Nokia’s Advanced Consulting Services business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. My journey with Nokia spans nearly seventeen years, beginning at a time when consulting was largely focused on network transformation initiatives. Over the years, I have worked closely with operators around the world on transformation programmes, analytics adoption, customer experience management and digital modernization.

As the industry evolved, so did our consulting focus. Following the Nokia and Alcatel Lucent merger, we established what is today known as Advanced Consulting Services. The organization now spans several domains, including security, business monetization, cloud and technology transformation, autonomous operations, and data and AI.

More recently, we launched an Automation Excellence Practice. The idea was simple. Customers often appreciated our strategic blueprints but needed practical expertise to implement them. Today, we have specialized engineers who combine telecom expertise, AI capabilities and software development skills to turn strategic visions into real automation pipelines, AI-driven workflows and production-ready use cases. Our role is to help customers move from concept to measurable business outcomes.

Nokia is often associated with connectivity, but the company is increasingly talking about AI readiness. How does Nokia’s infrastructure portfolio support this transition?

AI is creating what we describe as an AI supercycle. It is transforming everything from data centres and cloud infrastructure to network architectures and edge computing. Supporting this shift requires a complete ecosystem rather than isolated technologies.

Nokia’s portfolio addresses this across multiple layers. On the network side, we continue to innovate in radio technologies, including AI-RAN capabilities developed alongside strategic partners such as Nvidia. We also have a strong optical networking and IP portfolio that enables the high-capacity connectivity required between data centres, edge locations and cloud environments.

One area that excites me is our innovation in data centre networking. We are introducing highly efficient coherent optical technologies and advanced switching platforms that significantly reduce infrastructure footprints while improving performance and energy efficiency. These innovations are becoming increasingly important as organizations invest in AI factories, AI grids and large-scale inference environments.

Beyond connectivity, we also provide intelligent automation layers through our autonomous networking platforms, enabling operators to manage complex, multi-vendor environments more efficiently and intelligently.

What are some of the biggest infrastructure bottlenecks you see operators and enterprises facing as AI adoption accelerates?

One of the biggest challenges is understanding that AI infrastructure is not just about compute power. Organizations often focus heavily on GPUs and processing capabilities, but connectivity can quickly become the limiting factor.

You can deploy the most powerful AI infrastructure available, but if the network cannot support the required data movement between racks, data centres and edge locations, performance suffers. This is where intelligent networking becomes critical.

At Nokia, we are helping customers design what we call AI-ready connectivity. This includes high-capacity optical networking, intelligent routing and the seamless interconnection of compute environments. As AI workloads become increasingly distributed, the ability to move data efficiently becomes just as important as the ability to process it.

On the consumer side, Nokia has been showcasing AI-driven Wi-Fi management capabilities. How does this improve the end-user experience?

The home network has become far more complex than it was a few years ago. Consumers expect flawless connectivity across multiple devices, applications and services.

Our AI-enabled Wi-Fi solutions continuously monitor network performance and user experience. They can identify coverage gaps, detect congestion, analyze interference patterns and even recommend or automatically implement corrective actions.

The goal is to create a self-optimizing network environment where many issues can be resolved autonomously before they impact the user. This reduces support requirements for service providers while delivering a more consistent and reliable experience for customers.

The Middle East is witnessing an unprecedented surge in data centre investments. How do you see this shaping Nokia’s opportunities in the region?

The Middle East has emerged as one of the most dynamic markets globally for AI infrastructure investments. Governments and enterprises are actively investing in sovereign AI capabilities, advanced data centres and digital ecosystems.

This creates significant opportunities, not only for Nokia but for the broader technology industry. The success of these initiatives depends on having secure, scalable and efficient connectivity between compute resources, cloud environments and end users.

Our role is to help customers build these foundations. Whether it is data centre interconnectivity, optical networking, intelligent routing or autonomous operations, Nokia’s technologies are designed to support the scale and performance requirements of AI-driven economies.

As data volumes continue to grow, security and data sovereignty are becoming increasingly important. How is Nokia addressing these concerns?

Security is deeply embedded into Nokia’s strategy and innovation roadmap. As a European technology company, trust, resilience and security have always been fundamental principles in how we design and operate our solutions.

While we continue to invest heavily in AI innovation, we are equally focused on strengthening security capabilities across our portfolio. This includes advanced network security architectures, AI-driven threat detection and preparations for future technologies such as quantum-safe networking.

We are actively engaged with industry bodies, standards organizations and ecosystem partners to help define the next generation of secure digital infrastructure. As AI becomes increasingly pervasive, security must evolve alongside it, and that is an area where Nokia continues to invest significantly.

Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of AI-driven networks?

What excites me most is the convergence of AI, automation and connectivity. Networks are evolving from passive transport layers into intelligent platforms that can learn, adapt and optimize themselves.

The future will be defined by autonomous operations, AI-native networks and real-time decision-making at scale. Organizations that successfully combine these capabilities will unlock entirely new business models and levels of operational efficiency.

For us, the opportunity is not just about deploying technology. It is about helping customers transform the way they operate, innovate and create value in an increasingly AI-driven world.