Talk
Your Next Customer Won’t Google You: How GCC Brands Get Picked by ChatGPT and AI Shopping Agents
Shoppers in the GCC are starting their search inside ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI assistants instead of Google or marketplaces. When AI recommends three products, the brands missing from that answer don’t exist for that buyer. Most e-commerce teams still optimise only for search engines and paid ads, so they’re invisible in AI answers, especially in Arabic.
In this talk I share what I’ve learned from rebuilding my own website for AI search and coaching GCC business owners through the same shift. I’ll show what AI assistants look at when they recommend a product, why most product pages fail that test and the changes that get a brand mentioned: structured product content, answer-ready FAQs, trust signals AI can read and Arabic content written for Arabic searches rather than translated.
Attendees leave with a simple checklist to test whether AI recommends their brand today and a 30-day plan to fix the gaps without a big tech budget.
About
Lama Malaeb is the Founder of AI Growth Hub, a Dubai-based Arabic and English AI coaching and training business serving entrepreneurs, SME owners and corporate teams across the GCC and MENA. She sits on the Strategy Board of the Middle East Social Media and Digital Association (MESMDA). With 12 years in training, 10+ years in social media and 3 years focused on AI, she helps brands get found and chosen in the age of AI search. Lama holds 15+ AI certifications from Vanderbilt University, Meta and Google, is an official HeyGen Ambassador and spoke on AI agents at Experts Live Emirates 2026. She created the B.R.A.I.N. framework and the Three Bucket Map.