AI Expansion Emerges as Top Priority for UAE Businesses: Salesforce Study
Expanding the use of artificial intelligence has become the top priority for UAE commerce leaders, surpassing objectives such as customer acquisition and adapting to changing buyer behaviour, according to new research from Salesforce.
The UAE findings from the fourth edition of Salesforce’s State of Commerce report highlight how businesses are adapting to changes in the way consumers discover and purchase products, with AI assistants increasingly becoming part of the buying journey.
Globally, the report found that agentic search as the starting point for shopping journeys increased 200% year over year, while traffic referred from AI chat platforms rose between 150% and 428% across the quarters measured.
According to the study, implementing or expanding AI capabilities ranks as the leading priority for UAE commerce organisations for the year ahead. Other priorities include expanding the customer base, responding to changing buyer behaviour, increasing omnichannel capabilities and improving data quality and management.
Businesses are already making changes to improve their visibility across AI-driven discovery channels. The research found that 62% of UAE businesses have created or optimised content for conversational and question-based searches, while 61% have improved product content quality.
Another 61% have sought to increase their presence across third-party sources, while 58% have submitted data feeds directly to AI search platforms. The study also found that 37% of businesses have optimised product descriptions for natural-language queries, while 31% are monitoring how their brands appear in AI-generated responses.
“The UAE has always understood that technology only matters when it improves how people live and work. What this research shows is a market that gets it. Our commerce leaders are not waiting to see what AI search becomes. They are already reshaping how customers find them, and they are doing the harder work of connecting their data, so the experience actually delivers. The ambition in this country has never been the question. What I see in these numbers is execution catching up to that ambition, and that is when real transformation happens,” said Mohammed Alkhotani, SVP and GM, Salesforce, Middle East.
The research also points to a relationship between unified customer data and business outcomes from AI and automation. Among UAE organisations that have unified their customer data, 48% reported improved outcomes from AI and automation, while 47% said sales, marketing and commerce teams were better aligned.
A further 46% reported more consistent pricing and contract application. The study found that 43% had increased conversion rates, while the same proportion reported improvements in customer retention and loyalty. Another 41% said they were able to resolve customer issues faster.
Despite increased investment in digital commerce, the study found that UAE businesses continue to face challenges in delivering consistent omnichannel experiences. For B2B organisations, 44% identified ordering channels spread across multiple systems as their most common failure point. Real-time inventory synchronisation was a problem for 37% of businesses, while 35% reported difficulties consistently recognising customer information across different channels.
Another 35% cited complicated or inconsistent returns and exchanges, while 33% pointed to inconsistent pricing and promotions between channels. Only 1% of UAE multichannel organisations reported having no significant breakdowns across their commerce operations, according to the report.
The findings suggest that while UAE businesses are increasingly prioritising AI and adapting to AI-driven customer discovery, challenges around data integration and omnichannel infrastructure remain key barriers to delivering consistent customer experiences.
