Brandon Greaves
Principal Investigator · Founder, SGC TECH AI
Twenty years building enterprise software across the GCC. Leads instrument design and sector coverage for Banking, Real Estate and Energy.
Vol. 01 · Forthcoming Q1 2027
The UAE AI & Tech
Adoption Index
An independent, longitudinal study of how operators across the Emirates are turning artificial intelligence from pilot into infrastructure — sector by sector, decision by decision.
In conversation with
- Ministry of AI
- DIFC Innovation Hub
- Hub71
- Mohammed bin Rashid AI Lab
- G42 Research
- Khalifa University
§ 01 · Thesis
Adoption is not a metric. It is a practice.
Most reporting on AI in the Gulf measures announcements. We measure what happens after — the workflows that change, the budgets that move, and the org charts that quietly get redrawn.
Hypothesis
The UAE is moving faster from headline to implementation than any comparable economy. The bottleneck is no longer access to models — it is operational fluency.
Why now
2026 marks the first full fiscal cycle in which most large UAE employers will report AI-derived productivity as a line item. The data exists. It has not been collected.
What we measure
Procurement, deployment, retraining, governance, and unit-economics impact across 14 sectors — fielded through structured 12-minute interviews with 300+ operators.
“Every CIO in the country can tell you what they bought. Almost none can tell you what changed because of it. That gap is the story.”
— Index research note, Q1 2026
Brandon Greaves
Brandon Greaves
Principal Investigator · Founder, SGC TECH AI
§ 02 · Findings preview
Early signal from the field
Early projections based on the first 40 structured interviews completed in Jun 2026 as fieldwork opens. Final figures, sector breakdowns, and methodology audit ship with the published Index.
0%
Of UAE enterprises ran a generative-AI pilot in 2025
Preliminary, n=148
“We bought the software. We never bought the change.”
— CFO, Dubai logistics group, AED 180M revenue
0%
Of those pilots are now in production with measurable P&L impact
Preliminary, n=148
“Three vendors promised AI in 2024. By Q3 we had three dashboards nobody opens.”
— COO, Sharjah manufacturing, AED 90M revenue
§ 03 · Methodology
Built to be argued with
The full instrument, sampling frame, and coding rubric will be released with the Index so that any reader — or competitor — can interrogate the numbers.
- 01
Sampling frame
Stratified across 14 priority sectors and three operator tiers (enterprise, growth, public). Sample target: 300 completed interviews; minimum 15 per sector.
- 02
Instrument
A 12-minute structured interview covering procurement, deployment, governance, retraining, and unit-economics. Open-ended follow-ups recorded with consent.
- 03
Fieldwork
Conducted Jun–Dec 2026 by the SGC TECH AI research team in English and Arabic. All conversations confidential; no individual operator is identified in the report.
- 04
Analysis & audit
Coded against a published rubric. External methodology audit by an independent academic reviewer prior to release.
§ 04 · Coverage
Fourteen sectors. One country.
Sector selection follows the UAE National Strategy for AI 2031 plus the highest-employment private-sector verticals.
- Banking & Capital Markets
- Insurance
- Real Estate & PropTech
- Logistics & Trade
- Energy & Utilities
- Healthcare & Life Sciences
- Retail & E-commerce
- Hospitality & Tourism
- Construction & Engineering
- Education
- Public Sector & Defence
- Media & Entertainment
- Professional Services
- Manufacturing
§ 05 · Timeline
From fieldwork to release
Jun 2026
Fieldwork opens
First wave of structured interviews begins across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
Sep 2026
Mid-fieldwork checkpoint
Interim findings shared privately with participating operators.
Dec 2026
Analysis & audit
Coding completed; independent methodology audit underway.
Q1 2027
Public release
The Index is published in full, with sector cuts and a downloadable dataset for accredited researchers.
§ 06 · Research team
A small, named team — accountable to the data
The Index is a piece of journalism as much as it is a study. Every finding has a person behind it whose name is on the page.
Researcher · TBC
Senior Research Lead
Heads fieldwork operations and the bilingual interview team. Profile to be published at fieldwork close.
Reviewer · TBC
Independent Methodology Auditor
Academic reviewer responsible for auditing the coding rubric and statistical methodology prior to release.
§ 07 · Participate
Twelve minutes. Embargoed access to the full Index.
We are interviewing 300 senior operators across the UAE. Conversations are confidential, calendar-friendly, and almost always shorter than the commute home. Participants receive the full Index — including their sector cut — under a one-week embargo before public release.
§ 08 · Early access
Read it first.
Subscribe for the publication date and a short note when the Index goes live. No newsletter, no marketing — one email when the report is ready.