Professor Fiona Robson,

Head of the School of Social Sciences & Edinburgh Business School

HR is no longer just about recruitment and retention – there is a growing trend towards taking a more creative and innovative approach. This can involve looking at talent through different lenses rather than seeing it as a hierarchical talent management process focusing on vertical promotions within the organization.

In an age where HR rightly have a seat at the strategic table for decision making, they have the opportunity to ensure that appropriate levels of funding and expertise are used to develop a forward-looking talent strategy that goes beyond the norm. Artificial intelligence (AI) brings a plethora of opportunities for organisations to be braver in how they identify potential talent. Using AI to identify talent can be a useful starting point but when it comes to areas such as innovation and identifying an entrepreneurial mindset, it may be more difficult to pinpoint the traits which could indicate potential to innovate.

Where HR teams start to consider and plot non-traditional pathways they may be able to recruit and retain employees with diverse skillsets. Taking an entrepreneurial path opens up the talent pool as it isn’t as focused on people looking at the next hierarchical step up within the organisation. This is important as there are usually resource constraints about how many vacancies are available to fill at the highest pay grades in the organisation. These new pathways should provide opportunities for women to shine in different types of projects and recognise the strategic importance of creative thinking and innovation.

Providing testing opportunities

Depending on the level of finance available there are some additional resources that could be provided. Innovation sprints or challenges can be a great way to test out ideas and receive feedback from different groups of stakeholders. They may facilitate prototyping and identify issues that were not previously considered. Internal technology venture labs can also provide a safe environment to test out ideas and proof of concept. Collaborating with Universities who are experienced in running labs and sprints can be very beneficial, they may also have access to funding to support the development of new products and services. However, in order to be truly successful, they need to ensure that there is a sustainable follow up process before the momentum deflates.

Inclusive Procurement and Equitable IP Policies

Organisations can seek to lead the way and exhibit good practice by reviewing their procurement policies where practicable to ensure that they are inclusive. Examples may include having provision for flexible payment terms which would make it easier for those at the beginning of their entrepreneurship journey. Access to specialist support which could help women to set up their businesses in a more timely way could also break down some of the perceived barriers. Often the processes around procurement can be rather cumbersome so the provision of training which shows exactly how to navigate it could be helpful. Forward looking organisations might seek to approve a process whereby women entrepreneurs are given priority with their applications.

For many women, even thinking about intellectual property (IP) and patents can seem overwhelming if they have never had exposure to this world before. The introduction of simplified processes could act as a springboard to attract more women, particularly if the timeline can be expedited so that there is a shorter gap between the initial idea and when it is approved. Having access to real case studies showing how this happens would also be reassuring. In large organisations, the HR team may be able to encourage the legal team to provide some initial advice so that prospective entrepreneurs get a realistic insight into whether their proposal has merit or not.

Commercial Advantage Through Policy

HR can make a name for itself by encouraging innovation through widening participation and breaking down barriers to encourage, support and recognise innovation. For some HR professionals this may be quite a shift for them so they may also require some reskilling and retraining.

It would be good practice for organisations to regularly review their HR policies to ensure that they reflect the changing eco-system and that there are appropriate diversity clauses within the library of policies, procedures and practices. As part of this, ensuring that there is awareness of bias and how this can sneak into processes unconsciously and inadvertently disadvantage women. The establishment of women’s networks would be a proactive approach and could help them at all of the different stages of developing and executing their entrepreneurial ideas.

Providing funding opportunities may be one of the most impactful decisions that an organisation can make. Obviously this would need to have transparent parameters around it but it could be the difference between an idea being turned into practice or not. If the funding allocation is governed by stakeholders with appropriate expertise in different areas i.e. finance, law, governance and people, this would reduce the organisational risk of investing in small new businesses. Where there isn’t a potential conflict of interest, organisations could also make a significant impact by facilitating market entry and opening doors within networks and supply chains.

“By tightly integrating SAP and Snowflake, we’re making it simple for enterprises to connect their critical business data with its rich context in SAP with the power of seamless AI app and data agent development at scale in Snowflake,” added Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product, Snowflake. “Enterprises can now innovate faster with Snowflake and SAP BDC and seamlessly share data between the platforms —zero-copy and fully governed.”

SAP Snowflake brings Snowflake into the open data ecosystem of SAP BDC and the business data fabric–empowering customers with greater openness and choice, while extending SAP BDC with Snowflake’s AI, analytics, data engineering, Marketplace, and collaboration capabilities. Customers can use SAP BDC with SAP Snowflake as a cloud-scale compute and storage option to extend the value of their data. Leveraging bidirectional, zero-copy data access, data and AI teams can work with semantically rich SAP data products in real time, within a unified governance framework. As a result, customers can harmonize SAP and non-SAP data while optimizing total cost of ownership across workloads and build agents and AI applications in SAP Snowflake fueled by trusted SAP data products.

“Bringing Snowflake to SAP Business Data Cloud empowers our customers with openness and choice,” said Irfan Khan, President and Chief Product Officer for SAP Data and Analytics, SAP SE. “Together, we combine SAP’s decades of leadership in mission-critical business applications with Snowflake’s modern data platform to deliver a unified, enterprise-ready, and SAP-supported experience that extends the value of business data across the entire ecosystem.”

With SAP Snowflake, customers can:

• Build a trusted, AI-ready data foundation to harmonize SAP and non-SAP data: Unify their data landscape with an integrated business data fabric—enabling more seamless zero-copy sharing, enriched modeling, and a complete, business-ready view of their data in real time for all data engineering, analytics, and AI and machine learning workflows across the enterprise.
• Accelerate AI business value with semantically rich data: Simplify AI governance, ground AI in organizational knowledge, and build tailored agents—helping to ensure more secure, context-rich, and intelligent applications across the enterprise.
• Develop intelligent applications grounded in mission-critical business data: Build, deploy, and continuously optimize intelligent applications faster with a harmonized and democratized data foundation powered by semantically rich, trusted data products that accelerate the pace of innovation and production.

In addition to SAP Snowflake, the partnership also includes SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Snowflake, a capability enabling bidirectional, zero copy data sharing with Snowflake. Enterprises already using Snowflake can leverage SAP BDC Connect to integrate their existing instances of Snowflake with SAP Business Data Cloud for more seamless, zero‑copy access, providing Snowflake users with real-time access to semantically rich SAP data products—without duplication.

SAP and Snowflake are supporting thousands of customers, including industry leaders like AstraZeneca, as they transform their industries with this partnership.

“AstraZeneca is constantly pushing the boundaries of science and is pioneering in life-changing medicines,” said Russell Smith, Vice President of ERP Transformation Technology, AstraZeneca. “Data and AI are central to achieving this aim, and our close collaboration with SAP and Snowflake complements our ability to access, process and analyze real-time data. This announcement will accelerate our mission and recognizes that every minute matters to make breakthroughs for patients.”

SAP Snowflake is planned to be generally available in Q1 2026. SAP BDC Connect for Snowflake is planned to be generally available in H1 2026.

Through this campaign, HONOR continues its mission to merge innovation with emotion, celebrating individuals who reflect the brand’s belief in human-centric technology and everyday strength. The film tells the story of a high-altitude window cleaner — an unsung hero whose daily work symbolizes perseverance and optimism.

A Tribute to Everyday Strength

“Everyday Heroes” is part of HONOR’s broader storytelling approach, showcasing authentic human experiences that reflect the values of perseverance and hope. The campaign positions HONOR not merely as a technology brand, but as a partner in the human journey — recognizing that the greatest innovations are those that serve people.

From the sunrise that marks the beginning of the worker’s day to the emotional final shot of connection and relief, every frame of the film reflects HONOR’s message: strength, empathy, and innovation belong together. The campaign also honors the invisible heroes of modern cities — those whose contributions often go unnoticed but whose dedication keeps the world running smoothly.

Technology Inspired by Real Life

The HONOR X9d combines robust engineering with thoughtful innovation. Its durable structure and water-resistant design are matched by AI-powered features that make communication seamless and secure. This new device represents HONOR’s continuous efforts to build technology that complements human resilience — technology that keep up with life.

By focusing on real stories and relatable moments, HONOR reaffirms its commitment to creating devices that connect people emotionally, not just digitally. The “Everyday Heroes” campaign builds on the brand’s growing reputation for blending empathy with engineering — bringing to life a message that resonates deeply with consumers across the GCC region.

The campaign film “Everyday Heroes” is available to watch on HONOR Arabia’s official social media channel, accompanied by behind-the-scenes content showcasing the production process and the real-life inspirations behind the story.

The survey highlights that 58% of GCC respondents expressed optimism (up 9 percentage points from 2024) and 45% reported confidence. These figures surpass global averages, indicating a strong regional embrace of AI.

The study, in collaboration with BCG X, BCG’s tech build and design division, included respondents from Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, ranging from executive suite leaders to frontline employees. It highlights the region’s rapid advancement in AI adoption, in line with national strategies aimed at digital transformation and economic diversification.

Dr. Lars Littig, Managing Director and Partner at BCG, said:

“The GCC is emerging as a global leader in AI deployment, with high frontline adoption and leadership support nearly twice the global average. For companies and public sector entities alike, this signals a clear mandate: strategic investment in AI, paired with strong leadership and training, offers a blueprint for enterprise-wide transformation.”

The GCC showed a strong adoption in regular AI usage, with 78% of frontline employees using GenAI frequently, 27 percentage points above the global average. Among managers and leaders, usage is even higher, reaching 90% and 92% respectively, compared to global averages of 78% and 88%. This widespread adoption reflects a strong regional commitment to integrating AI into daily workflows.

About 45% of respondents in the GCC found their AI training satisfactory (versus 36% globally), and 54% of frontline employees received clear guidance from leadership (compared to 25% globally). However, this also correlates with a higher risk of “shadow AI” use, with 63% expressing they would use AI tools even if not authorized by the company, compared to 54% globally.

AI is also delivering tangible productivity benefits. Over half (53%) of the report’s respondents save more than an hour daily through AI, with time reallocated to a variety of tasks. These include performing more tasks (58%), working on strategic initiatives (38%), finishing work earlier and with better quality (58%), and pursuing professional development (38%). Others use the time to experiment with GenAI (43%), connect with coworkers (43%), or engage in non-work activities (33%). However, only half receive guidance on how to best use this saved time, which may limit the full impact.

The real transformation lies ahead with two critical developments: agentic AI systems that can operate autonomously to complete complex workflows and make decisions, and the emerging opportunity to invent entirely new business solutions with AI that go beyond efficiency gains to create novel value propositions and revenue models.

“AI is undoubtedly already a powerful driver of performance, which will only get more embedded in organizations, enhancing workflows and how teams operate and collaborate. Indeed, in the GCC, over half of employees are saving more than an hour daily and re-investing that time into strategic initiatives, innovation, and employee well-being. For business leaders, this makes a powerful case for scaling AI not just for efficiency, but for unlocking sustainable growth and talent potential,” added Rami Mourtada, Partner and Director at BCG.

As the GCC continues to lead in GenAI adoption and confidence, the BCG study underscores how strong leadership, effective training, and high awareness are driving productivity and innovation, while also flagging risks like unauthorized AI use. It offers valuable insights for policymakers and business leaders to shape responsible, future-ready AI strategies by benchmarking against global data.

Infinia Technologies, a subsidiary of Sirius International Holding, announced a strategic partnership with Satya Retail, a DS Group affiliate, at GITEX Global 2025, the world’s largest technology and innovation event in Dubai. Through this collaboration, Infinia Technologies aims to leverage its advanced AI operating ecosystem to power Satya Retail’s merchant network with AI-driven analytics, blockchain-based invoicing, and digital financial tools, transforming India’s retail landscape.

By combining Infinia Technologies’ AI and blockchain infrastructure with DS Group’s unmatched distribution expertise and Satya Retail’s deep merchant network, this initiative will create an intelligent, scalable, and inclusive retail ecosystem designed to empower millions of small businesses across the country. The official signing took place today at GITEX Global 2025, in the presence of Arif Khan, CEO of Infinia Technologies, along with Ritesh Kumar, Director at DS Group.

The collaboration marks the launch of SAII – Smart AI Integrator, a world’s first initiative that turns millions of low-tech, high-potential neighbourhood retailers into a data-rich, AI-enabled commerce network. Branded as “The Digital Saathi for Merchants,” SAII provides a single platform for all merchant needs; from blockchain-based e-invoicing and micro-financing to insurance, hyperlocal advertising with two-way data transfer for merchants and vendor network.

For the first time, India’s retailers will receive access to powerful digital capabilities at scale through SAII. It will help merchants operate smarter, improve efficiency, and build deeper partnerships across the supply chain.

Commenting on the announcement, Arif Khan, CEO of Infinia Technologies, said: “This partnership represents a defining moment in how AI and Blockchain can drive real-world impact. This collaboration will positively accelerate India’s digital economy. Through SAII, we’re enabling millions of India’s retailers to access intelligent tools and digital services that were once out of reach, while advancing our mission to take advanced AI from Abu Dhabi to the world. This is only the beginning; we plan to extend the SAII model across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, with more projects to be announced soon.”

Ritesh Kumar, Director at DS Group added: “Our collaboration with Infinia Technologies brings together the strength of our retail network and their AI innovation to empower small businesses across India. SAII will help local merchants modernize their operations, access financial and digital tools seamlessly, and become part of a larger connected commerce ecosystem. This is a major step toward building a more inclusive and technology-driven retail economy.”

In cybersecurity, each era is defined by a shift in architecture. Firewalls dominated the 2000s. Endpoint protection and identity controls shaped the 2010s. Today, we are entering a new phase — one where cloud-native platforms, real-time data correlation, and AI-powered analytics are no longer optional but essential.

Nowhere is this transition more timely than in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. As cloud adoption accelerates across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and neighboring states, national cybersecurity resilience has become a critical pillar of digital transformation. GCC organizations have a unique opportunity to leap ahead — bypassing legacy limitations and adopting next-generation security architectures purpose-built for today’s advanced threats.

The Core Shift: Security Is Now a Data Problem

For decades, cybersecurity focused on control: firewalls, proxies, endpoint agents, and network gateways. While these tools remain foundational, today’s adversaries have evolved. Attackers exploit gaps between systems, bypass controls through misconfigurations, and evade siloed defenses with increasing sophistication.

The result is a fundamental architectural shift: modern security is no longer solely about enforcing control — it’s about processing data. Effective defense requires ingesting, normalizing, and correlating telemetry across every layer of the enterprise: endpoints, cloud workloads, SaaS platforms, identity systems, and external intelligence feeds. When combined with AI-powered analytics, this data-driven approach transforms raw telemetry into actionable insights, allowing defenders to outpace attackers, rather than merely react, once an attack has been detected.

Cloud-Native Design: The Architecture That Scales

Traditional security information and event management (SIEM) systems and on-premises platforms struggle to meet the scale, flexibility, and speed required in modern hybrid environments. Cloud-native architectures, by contrast, offer elastic scalability that aligns directly with national digital transformation priorities across the GCC.

However, the scale of telemetry introduces new challenges. Global cloud storage volumes are projected to reach 100 zettabytes by the end of 2025. Storing and processing such massive datasets can quickly become prohibitively expensive — unless managed with modern design principles.

The solution lies in the security data lake: a unified, long-term, cloud-native repository capable of retaining years of structured and unstructured security data. Unlike legacy systems limited to weeks or months of visibility, a security data lake enables continuous historical analysis for threat hunting, compliance, and investigations.

Crucially, modern architectures decouple storage and compute. Instead of permanently allocating compute resources (as most legacy platforms do), serverless designs apply compute power only when needed, dramatically reducing cost while enabling faster analysis.

For example, by leveraging serverless infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Anomali enables compute bursts across thousands of nodes, delivering correlations and searches up to 1,000 times faster, at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. This approach is particularly aligned to national resilience goals, where speed and efficiency are essential.

Real-Time Correlation at Petabyte Scale

Today’s attackers automate their reconnaissance, probing continuously for vulnerabilities across every layer of the enterprise. To keep pace, organizations must reduce detection time and response costs, which demands real-time correlation across petabytes of data.

By integrating telemetry from multiple domains — including firewalls, endpoints, SaaS platforms, identity providers, and threat intelligence — organizations gain visibility into attacks that no single control would detect alone. For GCC enterprises expanding hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures, the ability to correlate across these diverse sources in real time is mission-critical.

AI Delivers Context, Not Just Alerts

Artificial intelligence is now widely marketed in cybersecurity, but much of it offers opaque conclusions without transparency — effectively adding noise rather than clarity.

True AI-powered defense must provide explainability. Anomali applies chain-of-thought (CoT) AI reasoning, ensuring every detection includes the rationale, evidence, and audit trail behind each decision. This transparency builds analyst confidence and accelerates skill development, particularly valuable as GCC nations continue building local cybersecurity talent and operational maturity.

Intelligence Closes the Gaps Left by Controls

Even with modern defenses in place, critical gaps remain. Studies show that many endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions still miss up to 30% of advanced threats, thanks to sophisticated evasion techniques, configuration gaps, or partial visibility. Firewalls suffer similar challenges: misconfigurations and limited context allow adversaries to slip past perimeter defenses.

This is where intelligence plays a decisive role. By unifying diverse telemetry and correlating billions of daily security events, modern security analytics platforms fill these blind spots, delivering full-spectrum detection across hybrid environments. For critical infrastructure, financial institutions, and government entities in the GCC, closing these gaps is no longer optional — it is a resilience imperative.

Agentless, Serverless, Effortless

Managing thousands of endpoint agents introduces complexity, operational risk, and resource overhead. Cloud-native platforms eliminate much of this friction by integrating directly with cloud platforms, SaaS services, and enterprise infrastructure via secure APIs, allowing telemetry ingestion without deploying additional agents.

For organizations balancing hybrid complexity with cloud-first strategies, agentless deployment models dramatically simplify operations — enabling faster rollout, lower risk, and greater agility.

Why the GCC Is Uniquely Positioned to Lead

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and neighboring GCC nations are investing heavily in smart cities, digital economies, and next-generation public services. These national ambitions require security platforms that are scalable, adaptive, intelligent, and capable of evolving alongside rapid technological change.

Cloud-native, AI-powered, intelligence-driven security operations are no longer a distant vision but an operational necessity. By embracing these architectures, GCC enterprises and governments are positioned not only to meet today’s security demands, but to set a global standard for the future of cyber defense.

The time to shift from fragmented controls to unified intelligence is now. The future of security isn’t about deploying more tools — it’s about building smarter platforms.

And the GCC is ready.

Wei Huang is the Chief Technology Officer at Anomali, a global leader in intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions.

Semantic representations of information are crucial for the functionality of large language models (LLMs), which is fuelling a heightened focus on semantics within data and analytics (D&A) and AI. 

Data silos become entrenched and limit an organization’s capacity to draw insights from its data. Without understanding the relationships within data, the individual pieces of information become less useful.

Semantic approaches facilitate a shared understanding of business terms and their interrelationships, which is vital for providing the necessary context for generative AI (GenAI). In a Gartner survey on the evolution of data management, 44% of the respondents from AI-ready organizations reported that semantic alignment is a key factor in assessing the AI readiness of their data.

D&A leaders can enhance and expand their semantic understanding by leveraging emerging technologies such as knowledge graphs and augmented data catalogs, thereby unlocking greater value from their information resources.

What is Data Semantics?

Data semantics refers to the meaning and interpretation of data within a business-specific context, as opposed to focusing on the physical representation of data through a data dictionary or a business glossary. It involves understanding what a data element represents, how it should be used, and its relationships with other data elements. Without this understanding, data is of limited use for AI use cases.

Semantic modeling is a practice of connecting technical metadata with business metadata.

A business glossary serves as the foundation for all things “semantic,” documenting the meanings of business-related terms. When the semantics and rules of a business glossary are well-understood, it leads to better data quality, easier integration and greater usefulness, supporting interactions with LLMs. The glossary also supports business goals like reducing costs and managing risks by making definitions clear, consistent and easy to trace back to their sources.

Top Recommendations for D&A leaders

• -Upskill your data engineers with semantic modeling techniques such as the use of knowledge graphs in building business ontologies.
• -Introduce DataOps practices to “deliver value from data” more easily, quickly and broadly. Take a people-, product- and governance-centric approach.
• -Invest in converged data management platforms. Establish a platform engineering team that produces platform services for platform tenants.

Key Benefits of Data Semantics

Leveraging and governing semantics effectively enables:

• –Improved Data Understanding: Both people and applications gain a unified view of data and its structure. For example, if several medical e-commerce sites use consistent relationships between terms, applications can extract and aggregate information across these sites to support user queries or serve as input for other applications.
• –Knowledge Reuse: Relationships uncovered by one group can be reused or built upon by others for new use cases, allowing previously identified connections to be embedded in future work.
• –Enhanced Accuracy with LLMs:  Incorporating knowledge graphs into the training and inference processes of LLMs serves as a factual base (i.e., data and metadata source) for mitigating errors and hallucinations.
• –Enhanced Interoperability and Innovation: By adopting semantic modeling, organizations open themselves to a wider range of use cases and enable more effective data interchange.

Link Data from Different Sources to Derive Data Relationships

Semantic reconciliation plays a crucial role in effectively linking data from different sources. It is also essential for inferring relationships between disparate datasets. Without a clear understanding of the relationships, correlations and distinctions among the meanings of data from different modalities such as text, videos, images and structured data, organizations cannot fully realize the potential of their data assets.

Modern semantic tools use algorithms to find connections in data. These tools recommend the best ways to clean, organize and analyze information. They also track where data comes from and how it is used for better governance.

With augmented data discovery, algorithms automatically detect correlations, segments, clusters, outliers and relationships, presenting the most statistically significant and relevant results. By using these semantic approaches, organizations can connect information from different sources, uncover relationships and gain valuable insights that drive better decisions.

In business ecosystems, the degree of openness is driven by members’ strategies, common goals and shared interests. For example, governments, nongovernmental organizations, charities and community groups can collaborate on health or public policy issues, or in open-source developer communities. This creates an opportunity for exploiting the knowledge of data and the meaning of data in terms of what can be applied to several digital business moments.

Lastly Think Data Semantics Before Introducing Large Language Models

Organizations are spearheading transformative initiatives to implement large language models in order to transform their operations. However, data and analytics leaders often rush to integrate LLM capabilities without first ensuring these tools are aligned with real business outcomes. To maximize value, it’s essential to connect LLMs with robust semantic frameworks.

Knowledge graphs are a powerful foundation for leveraging LLMs in business contexts. These machine-readable data structures capture semantic knowledge about both physical and digital entities. These worlds include entities and their relationships, which adhere to a network of nodes and links forming the graph data model.

LLMs can streamline the creation of ontologies, which define categories and relationships within data. By using “few-shot” learning prompts—providing just a handful of examples—users can guide LLMs to generate base ontologies in open formats that suit their needs. These initial frameworks can then be refined for greater detail as required.

Additionally, LLMs support ontology mapping by helping users align entities and relationships across different datasets or systems. With targeted prompts and sample mappings, organizations can extract relevant connections from their data and improve accuracy through iterative refinement.

By adopting large language models alongside semantic representations like knowledge graphs and ontologies, organizations position themselves for faster deployment of advanced analytics solutions that deliver meaningful business value.

Check out our previous post NMK Interactive 2025 Sets New Middle East AV Benchmark

A New Approach to Industrial AI

At the heart of the collaboration lies Nybl’s n.vision platform, now combined with IBM’s WatsonX AI and governance capabilities. Together with IBM Maximo, the platform equips enterprises with secure and intelligent asset management. As a result, companies can reduce costs, increase reliability, and improve safety outcomes while maintaining compliance with international standards.

IBM’s Watsonx.Governance provides transparency, lifecycle management, and regulatory alignment, ensuring that AI adoption remains both responsible and effective. Meanwhile, Nybl brings deep sector knowledge, making the solutions highly adaptable to the complex needs of industries such as energy, water, and utilities.

Visual Intelligence in Action

A key component of the new solution is IBM Maximo Visual Inspection (MVI). When combined with Nybl’s n.vision, the platform analyzes large volumes of imagery from drones and cameras. Consequently, organizations can detect faults earlier, predict equipment failures, and recommend prescriptive actions that minimize downtime.

By automating quality checks and defect detection, the approach not only enhances safety but also streamlines workflows. Furthermore, it ensures that industries can uphold high operational standards without overburdening their teams.

Empowering Smarter Decisions

The collaboration also introduces two powerful modules within the NYBL ecosystem. Director powers real-time analytics and decision-making, while Stage provides intuitive visualizations for rapid response. Together, these tools enable leaders to make smarter operational choices and drive efficiency at scale.

According to IBM, this partnership reflects its vision for the future of enterprise AI. “At IBM, we believe the future of industry is AI-powered,” said Zaidoun Arbad, VP – Ecosystem, IBM Middle East and Africa. “By combining Nybl’s domain-specific innovation with IBM’s enterprise capabilities, we are enabling clients to transform operations and make smarter decisions in real time.”

Building AI with Purpose

For NYBL, the collaboration amplifies its mission to build AI grounded in science and ethics. Noor Alnahhas, Founder and CEO of NYBL, explained: “Our mission is to solve critical challenges across energy, agriculture, healthcare, and beyond. This partnership with IBM significantly scales our ability to deliver measurable impact while exporting innovation from the Middle East to the world.”

By focusing on purposeful AI, the partnership ensures that industrial innovation is not just efficient but also sustainable. Moreover, it highlights the importance of ethical AI development, with Alnahhas serving as a member of Dubai’s AI and Ethics Advisory Board.

Strengthening Global Technology Leadership

The agreement also allows IBM to integrate nybl’s innovations into its global portfolio, while supporting nybl’s ambition to position Middle Eastern technology on the world stage. Consequently, this collaboration strengthens the region’s influence in shaping the future of industrial AI.

Together, the two companies are creating an ecosystem where advanced, purpose-built AI drives real-world improvements. Whether preventing equipment failure, optimizing workflows, or enhancing safety, the combined capabilities of IBM Nybl AI solutions deliver measurable business value.

Looking Ahead

As industries worldwide face rising demand, increasing complexity, and tighter sustainability targets, AI-driven solutions are becoming indispensable. With this collaboration, IBM and NYBL demonstrate how trusted platforms like watsonx and Maximo can be combined with local innovation to create powerful, globally scalable solutions.

The launch in Dubai also reflects a growing trend: Middle Eastern companies are no longer just adopters of global technologies but exporters of innovation that impacts industries worldwide. With IBM Nybl AI solutions, the future of industrial operations looks not only smarter but also more resilient and ethical.

Check out our previous post on Thriwe Aina Launches in UAE to Redefine Customer Loyalty

The UAE has become the launchpad for Thriwe Aina, a next-generation AI concierge designed to transform customer loyalty. Announced in Dubai, this launch marks a major step in Thriwe’s journey as it pivots from a service-driven provider to a technology-first innovator. With Aina, the company aims to deliver loyalty programs that go beyond transactions and create meaningful, intelligent lifestyle experiences.

Why the UAE Was Chosen

The UAE continues to stand out as one of the world’s fastest-growing centers for artificial intelligence. Recent studies predict the country will rank third globally, behind only China and the United States, in AI’s economic contribution. Therefore, it is no surprise that Thriwe selected the UAE as the first market to debut its new concierge. By launching Aina here, Thriwe reinforces the nation’s role as a global hub for innovation and digital transformation.

Dhruv Verma, CEO and Founder of Thriwe, emphasized the importance of the move:
“Exceptional experiences build lasting loyalty. With Thriwe Aina, we’re not just enhancing engagement but redefining how loyalty is delivered in the digital age.”

What Sets Thriwe Aina Apart

Unlike traditional loyalty programs that focus on points or discounts, Thriwe Aina leverages AI to deliver seamless and inclusive concierge services. Moreover, businesses can integrate the platform quickly with their existing systems, minimizing disruption. In addition, it reduces operational costs while creating smarter, data-driven recommendations that anticipate customer needs.

For customers, Aina provides instant assistance, personalized suggestions, and natural multilingual conversations. Consequently, interactions feel effortless, relevant, and human, no matter the market.

The Future of Loyalty is Intelligent

The launch also signals a broader shift across the loyalty landscape. Businesses now need platforms that combine efficiency with personalization. Furthermore, AI enables companies to reduce their reliance on manual systems while increasing the quality of customer engagement.

“Launching first in the UAE reflects our confidence in this market as a global innovation hub,” Verma said. “Thriwe Aina sets a new benchmark for how loyalty can be seamless, intelligent, and inclusive.”

Delivering Measurable Impact

For businesses, Thriwe Aina creates tangible results:

• -Faster adoption with minimal operational disruption.
• -Automated query handling that reduces costs.
• -Data-driven insights that improve customer retention.

For customers, the platform becomes a trusted digital companion:

• Providing 24/7 personalized support.
• Anticipating preferences through intelligent recommendations.
• Enabling inclusive access through multilingual features.

As a result, loyalty becomes less about transactions and more about building long-term relationships.

Looking Toward Global Expansion

The debut of Thriwe Aina in the UAE is just the beginning. Entering the final quarter of 2025, Thriwe plans to expand its AI-driven ecosystem through strategic partnerships, customized offerings, and continued investment in machine learning. Meanwhile, the company is positioning itself as a leader in hyper-personalized loyalty solutions.

The UAE’s environment — one that blends bold digital infrastructure with forward-looking regulation — provides the perfect foundation for this journey. Therefore, Aina’s launch in Dubai represents more than a local milestone. It positions Thriwe as a global innovator, ready to redefine loyalty for the next decade.

Read our previous post, Check Point Wiz Partnership Delivers Unified Cloud Security

Check Point Software Technologies and Wiz have taken their strategic partnership to the next level with the rollout of a fully integrated cloud security solution. The new platform unites Check Point’s prevention-first cloud network security with Wiz’s Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP). Building on their February 2025 announcement, the two companies are now making the solution globally available. It delivers real-time visibility, AI-powered prevention, and unified protection for enterprises facing today’s complex cloud threats.

Why This Partnership Matters for Enterprises

As enterprise networks grow more distributed, the attack surface expands. Consequently, security teams face rising pressure to protect constantly changing cloud environments. The integration between Check Point and Wiz directly addresses this challenge. By combining visibility, prevention, and risk-aware remediation, the platform helps organizations secure their operations without sacrificing agility.

Real-Time Visibility and Smarter Prevention

With this integration, customers can view CloudGuard gateway configurations directly inside the Wiz platform. This visibility enables faster risk assessment and more informed action. Moreover, by including third-party firewall policies in Wiz’s analysis, teams can now reduce false positives and respond more effectively.

Oron Noah, VP of Product Extensibility and Partnerships at Wiz, noted: “We are helping teams understand their exposure and take action faster. This level of insight accelerates secure decision-making across the enterprise.”

Key Benefits of the Integrated Solution

The joint Check Point–Wiz offering provides several advantages for customers:

• Shift to prevention-first security – threats are blocked before they cause damage.
• Enhanced visibility and faster response – teams save both time and resources.
• AI-powered defense against zero-day attacks – protecting against the unknown.
• Reduced configuration risks – issues at the gateway level are identified and resolved quickly.

Furthermore, Wiz now integrates with Check Point Infinity Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). This allows companies to automate remediation flows, turning Wiz alerts into actions at the CloudGuard gateway. As a result, exposure times are reduced from hours to minutes.

Independent Validation and Market Impact

Check Point continues to demonstrate strong performance across network and cloud environments. In testing by CyberRatings.org, Check Point achieved a perfect 100% block rate with zero false positives. Meanwhile, Miercom’s 2025 benchmark report confirmed the Infinity Platform reached a 99.9% block rate against Zero+1-day malware and 99.7% prevention against phishing attacks.

A Global Solution for a Changing Threat Landscape

The new integrated cloud security solution is available worldwide as of today. By combining prevention-first network protection with CNAPP capabilities, Check Point and Wiz are offering enterprises a smarter way to defend their data, reduce risk, and stay ahead of attackers.

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