Our clients in the GCC have lofty ambitions for AI. However, actually implementing these strategies has proved challenging. We conducted a survey of 150+ of our GCC clients’ leadership and management teams across sectors to investigate why. We found that while our client’s leaders believe they are ready for AI transformation, management teams are much less optimistic.

How can we help our clients truly prepare for AI transformation? We intuitively visualized what our clients need to transform as an AI Avatar with each part of the body, a vital AI capability:

• The brain houses AI logic & algorithms while the heart guides strategy
• AI talent and governance are the arms that execute
  
• Technology and data give it legs
• AI culture is the torso that binds together the whole while ethics is the spine that holds it up

Client leaders can use their AI Avatar to prompt meaningful dialogue with their management to develop more realistic AI strategies that can truly transform our future. We have published our findings in AI Readiness in the Middle East report’s 2021 edition.

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Fortunately, our survey also revealed evidence that the reasons for our client’s AI challenges follow predictable patterns. We clustered our clients into AI personas that follow these patterns:

• Observers who have some semblance of an AI strategy but nothing more substantial
• Philosophers who have a sound strategy with some ability but limited technology
• Wanderers who have sound strategy with some technology investments but limited ability to execute
• Contenders who are more advanced but still struggle with AI talent and ethics

Navigate the tabs below to explore our key findings for each of the personas and their respective dominant sectors.