Thousands of executives, founders, and investors gathered at the Ai Everything event in Abu Dhabi to learn about numerous technologies capable of transforming healthcare, urban planning, energy, and business sectors. However, a more complex question arises: will these technologies actually be utilized?
In the corporate world, AI experimentation has outpaced actual implementation. According to Deloitte data, only 25 percent of organizations have moved at least 40 percent of their AI pilot projects into production this year, despite expectations of rapid growth in this metric.
Thomas Pramotedham, CEO of Abu Dhabi-based company Presight, believes that the problem is less about the ability to create an impressive AI system and more about the skill to convince an organization to change its processes around that system. He noted: 'You can have a great idea, but if you don't ensure its implementation, it means you haven't found a way to convey that idea to the person who is ready for change. Change can be the hardest part.'
This difficulty was the central theme of the Presight Future Forum, which took place on Monday, one day before Ai Everything. Instead of gathering only startups and investors, this event brought together founders with potential clients, technology companies, government bodies, and capital providers. A new platform, FutureSight, was also launched, designed to move technologies from the discovery stage to investment, deployment, and commercial scale.
Presight received 376 applications from 62 countries, from which it selected 12 companies operating in areas such as healthcare, AI security, critical infrastructure, smart cities, and climate intelligence. Nevertheless, Pramotedham emphasized that they were not just selecting companies with interesting concepts or high valuations. 'It is very difficult today to distinguish noise from signal.'
Presight carefully examined whether the companies possessed existing users, reliable clients, and proof that someone was willing to pay for their technology and integrate it. Among the presented systems were solutions for predicting patient deterioration in hospitals, detecting methane using satellite and aerial data, inspecting infrastructure with drones, and managing risks in corporate AI systems.
Pramotedham recalled a discussion where an investor asked the founder how to use a 60-second pitch. The advice given was to spend about 10 seconds on the idea itself and 50 seconds on the founder. His reasoning was that the idea would inevitably change, clients would react differently, problems would arise, and the founder would need to guide the company through these difficulties.
This challenge reflects a broader issue in the AI field. McKinsey reported last week that 89 percent of organizations regularly use AI in at least one business function, yet only about 6 percent consider themselves highly effective because they link it to significant financial impact. Technology is spreading, but organizational transformation around it takes longer.
It is in this context that Abu Dhabi seeks to create another level of its AI ecosystem. Substantial capital and computing infrastructure are already available, but the city is increasingly trying to bridge the gap between a technology company, a major client, and the institutions required for product deployment.
One example of this shift is Hub71. Startups in the Abu Dhabi ecosystem attracted over $2.7 billion by the end of 2025 and generated $1.5 billion in revenue. More importantly for commercialization, they secured corporate deals worth $244 million between 2022 and 2025.
Presight's FutureSight platform aims to advance this process further. The company states that the platform expands upon its previous accelerator model by connecting new companies not only with capital but also with clients, Presight's own business, and its wider network.
Pramotedham also stated that speed requires acknowledging that Abu Dhabi does not have to create every opportunity independently. He stressed: 'You can always create your own opportunity, but you cannot grow as fast as you need to in the modern world, where the AI revolution is developing so rapidly. Therefore, you need partnership and exchange.'
He added: 'The issues affecting us cannot wait for infrastructure to be built. You must solve them today using the best, most accessible, most reliable, and most applicable AI solutions.'
There is an obvious limitation: the UAE is not a consumer market on the scale of the US, China, or India. Pramotedham argues that the value of the UAE lies elsewhere. 'The UAE is not just a single market. The UAE is a catalyst,' he said, describing it as a potential gateway to markets in CIS, Central Asia, and other international markets.
Whether this model will succeed will be measured not by the number of founders attending events in Abu Dhabi, but by what happens afterward. The meeting must become a pilot project; the pilot project must transition into procurement; the product must undergo integration, regulation, and employee workflow changes. Then, the UAE client must become sufficient proof to win another client elsewhere. Abu Dhabi already possesses a significant portion of the capital and computing infrastructure for the AI boom. Its next bet is that clients willing to adopt new technologies can also be an advantage.
