UAE marketers are embracing artificial intelligence faster than their counterparts around the world, but a pronounced inability to access unified customer data is undermining the technology’s promise, according to new research from Salesforce.
The findings, drawn from the tenth edition of Salesforce’s State of Marketing Report, surveyed 100 marketing decision-makers in the UAE as part of a broader poll of 4,450 respondents across 26 countries, conducted between October and November 2025.
The data presents a striking paradox: the UAE is outpacing global peers on AI confidence while simultaneously facing a steeper data access problem than most.
Eighty-five percent of UAE marketers said they trust AI to respond to customer inquiries, above the 81% global average. The proportion running generic rather than personalized campaigns stands at 73%, meaningfully better than the 84% recorded globally. And while 48% of marketers worldwide have yet to adapt their strategies to AI, only 41% of UAE respondents said the same.
Yet despite that confidence, 78% of UAE marketers said they struggle to access the customer context needed for timely, personalized engagement — a substantially higher rate than the 69% who reported the same problem globally.
“The UAE marketing community finds itself in a curious position: ahead of the curve on AI adoption, yet trailing on the fundamentals that make AI matter,” Mohammed Alkhotani, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Salesforce Middle East and Africa, told Communicate.
The report identifies siloed data across channels as the leading barrier to AI-driven personalization, ahead of lack of overall strategy and difficulty scaling quality control. The finding points to what Salesforce characterizes not as a technology problem but an infrastructure one.
‘Traditional marketing funnel is compressing’
Alkhotani framed the challenge in terms of compressing market opportunity. “With half of all Google searches now surfacing AI-generated summaries, the traditional marketing funnel is compressing. Brands get fewer chances to earn attention, and those chances demand relevance that only unified data can deliver,” he told Communicate.
The research draws a direct line between data consolidation and commercial outcomes: marketers who have unified their customer data are 42% more likely to maintain regular customer dialogue and 60% more likely to deploy AI agents at scale, according to the report.
AI agents are already reshaping how consumers discover and purchase. During the most recent holiday season, AI and AI agents drove $262 billion in global sales, representing one in five global orders.
On customer expectations, UAE marketers are somewhat more measured than their global peers. Seventy-six percent said customers now expect two-way conversational interactions with brands, compared to 83% globally — though delivering on that expectation remains a challenge across both markets. Sixty-one percent of UAE respondents said they struggle to keep pace with changing customer behaviours, slightly better than the 64% global figure.
‘Path forward clear, if demanding’
The most common AI applications among UAE marketers include personalizing content, generating copy, and predicting campaign performance and return on investment — a spread that suggests broad adoption across the marketing function rather than use confined to specialist teams.
The gap between enthusiasm and execution runs through the findings. Both regions record identical rates — 86% — when asked whether AI is raising customer expectations, underscoring that the pressure to perform is equally felt even where capabilities diverge.
For Alkhotani, the path forward is clear, if demanding. “For UAE marketers, the mandate is straightforward: close the data gap first, or risk watching AI’s promise remain exactly that — a promise,” he told Communicate.
The survey was conducted on a double-anonymous basis across 26 countries. Performance tiers referenced in the broader report were defined by respondents’ stated satisfaction with the overall outcomes of their marketing investments.
