By: Dalia Abi Mosleh: Director of Technology, Gartner

One defining shift or lesson from 2025

AI Moved From Experimentation to Enterprise Redesign

2025 marked the year AI stopped being a side project and became a core strategic lever for the region’s most ambitious organizations. Across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, we witnessed a profound shift in executive thinking: AI was no longer framed around efficiency gains or “quick wins,” but around enterprise redesign, reshaping operating models, decision frameworks, and value creation itself.

Working with C-level leaders at Gartner, one lesson became universal: the organizations that advanced the fastest were not the ones with the most sophisticated algorithms, but the ones with the clearest leadership alignment.

The real transformation came from establishing AI governance early, re-skilling talent around decision intelligence (not just data literacy), moving from siloed digital initiatives to cross-functional transformation agendas, and anchoring every AI use case in measurable business impact.

2025 also exposed a gap: many enterprises underestimated the cultural transformation required to make AI successful. Technology accelerated faster than leadership behaviour, and companies learned that AI maturity is a human journey long before it is a technical one.

One bold, grounded prediction for 2026

Enterprise Value Shifts From Data to Decision Intelligence in the Cognitive Economy

In 2026, the region will accelerate into what we call the Cognition Economy, an economic phase where enterprise value is defined not by the volume of data collected, but by the quality, speed, and intelligence of decisions made across the organization.

The Middle East’s most competitive enterprises will shift from data-centric strategies to decision intelligence ecosystems, where AI, human judgment, predictive modeling, and real-time insights converge into seamless cognitive workflows.

In the Cognition Economy, organizations will become more adaptive, anticipatory, and strategically aligned than ever before. This means:

  • Leaders move from dashboards to simulations and scenario intelligence
  • Strategy becomes continuous, no longer bound by annual cycles
  • AI copilots embedded across every enterprise function
  • Cross-functional cognitive systems replace traditional hierarchies

For MENA, the implications are profound. Countries investing heavily in AI infrastructure, digital policy, and talent ecosystems, such as the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, are uniquely positioned to lead this transition. Their ambition, pace, and long-term orientation will set new global benchmarks for this transformation.In 2026, we will see the early winners of the cognition economy emerge. Enterprises harness decision intelligence not just to operate better, but to think differently, lead differently, and compete differently.