The Middle East has experienced a swift trajectory of emerging technologies over the past few years, driven by increasing recognition of their potential to foster a culture of innovation and connectivity, as well as contributing to global competitiveness and economic diversification.
This report explores the concepts that will dominate the technology landscape’s conversations in 2025, and offers a glimpse into the success stories of emerging technologies in the Middle East. It also emphasises the importance of organisations establishing their own research and development teams to secure a competitive edge and stay ahead of the curve.
- Innovation labs are spaces where organisations explore new ideas, experiment with technology, and solve real business challenges.
- The key to a successful Innovation lab is agile experimentation, driven by continuous research, iterative design, and development.
- Labs take many forms, government, industry specific, or academic - each shaped by the goals of the organisation behind them.
- AI has evolved from prediction, to generation, and now to agentic systems. Each AI wave represents a leap in both functionality and impact.
- The scarcity of Arabic datasets and diverse dialect variations complicate the process of building Arabic AI.
- Agentic AI marks a shift in the AI landscape where models are moving beyond content creation and are responding to real-world contexts.
- Immersive AI is the convergence of immersive technologies with artificial intelligence to create responsive, customised experiences.
- The focus of immersive technologies has shifted from quality of visual displays to integration into daily routines, comfort, and design.
- Immersive AI transforms headsets into intelligent and interactive environments across sectors like education and tourism.
- Evolution in AI, hardware, and software push robotics to accomplish tasks previously beyond their scope, and enable them to have human-like abilities.
- Physical AI allows machines to perceive, understand and perform complex actions in the real (physical) world.
- From appearance to functionality, we will see advancements in robot types, such as humaniod, collaborative, and aerial robots.
