- Salesforce’s latest findings highlight a market ahead in adoption, yet constrained by access to real-time customer insight.
The UAE’s marketing landscape is entering a decisive phase. According to the latest State of Marketing report by Salesforce, businesses in the country are showing strong confidence in artificial intelligence, even as structural challenges around data continue to limit its full potential.
The numbers point to a market that is both progressive and constrained. Around 85% of UAE marketers express trust in AI, compared to a global average of 81%, positioning the country as an early adopter. This suggests a readiness among businesses to integrate AI into core marketing functions, from customer engagement to campaign optimisation.
However, that confidence is tempered by a critical gap. Nearly 78% of marketers report difficulty in accessing real-time customer context, underlining a persistent issue with fragmented or siloed data systems. In practical terms, this limits the ability of brands to translate AI capabilities into meaningful, personalised interactions.
The report also reflects a broader shift in how brands are expected to communicate. Traditional one-way messaging is giving way to a more conversational model, where customers expect dialogue rather than broadcast. While 83% of marketers acknowledge this shift toward two-way, personalised engagement, only a quarter are satisfied with how effectively they are using data to support it.
This disconnect between ambition and execution is becoming a defining feature of the current landscape. On one hand, there is clear momentum toward what the report describes as “agentic marketing,” where AI enables more responsive and personalised customer journeys at scale. On the other, the underlying data infrastructure required to support such strategies remains uneven.
The findings suggest that the next phase of growth will depend less on adopting new technologies and more on integrating existing systems. For UAE businesses, the challenge is no longer whether to use AI, but how to ensure that the data feeding these systems is unified, accessible and actionable.
