Publicis Groupe Middle East & Turkey — April 2026
RESILIENCEBUSINESS PULSE
How UAE business leaders are navigating disruption and where the opportunities are.
Real data from 60+ senior leaders, paid media intelligence, and 300+ youth respondents.
Bassel Kakish
CEO, Publicis Groupe Middle East & Turkey
Foreword by Bassel Kakish
A lion never gives up. Neither does the UAE.
In times of disruption, the instinct is to wait for clarity. But clarity is not something that arrives on its own. It is something you build. That is what this report represents and what this market is doing.
This year, Publicis Groupe marks its centenary. One hundred years that have seen the Groupe rise from the ashes (sometimes literally), three times, reinvent itself many more, and grow from a small Montmartre hot shop into an industry-leading holding company. The spirit that carried us through a century of disruption is the same one captured in our centenary symbol: a lion never gives up.
We see that same spirit in the UAE. Those who know the UAE understand its strength goes far beyond the facades. The fundamentals are strong and continuously strengthening: clear governance, an enabling business environment, robust infrastructure. This is not a market that flinches. That steadiness was most visible under pressure. During the pandemic, when global uncertainty peaked, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan offered three words that reassured a nation: ‘La tshiloon ham’ (Do not worry). Clarity and confidence, precisely when they were needed most. The UAE always walks the talk. And in that, we trust.
The business community here reflects that same disposition. The leaders in our study are not passive observers of disruption, they are its architects of response. They are recalibrating: redirecting investment, stress-testing assumptions, making calculated bets on where the next cycle of growth begins.
What strikes me most in these findings is the depth of conviction in the UAE itself. Every single leader expressed confidence in the country's trajectory. That is not a sentiment; it is a signal. Ninety-four percent trust the government to protect the business environment. Seventy-eight percent believe the UAE will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Confidence at this level, sustained through real disruption, is a strategic asset. It's the foundation on which recovery accelerates.
The UAE has done this before. The evidence in these pages suggests it is doing it again. We share this research openly, because the insights belong to the ecosystem. Evidence should drive decisions. Not assumptions, not fear, not the loudest voice in the room.
A lion never gives up. Neither does the UAE.
Jennifer Fischer
Chief Innovation and Growth Officer, Publicis Groupe MENA
Foreword by Jennifer Fischer
They have earned the right to be optimistic.
The loudest voices about this region right now are coming from outside it. We wanted to hear from the people inside, and what they told us cuts through the noise.
The reality on the ground is more resilient, more dynamic, and more promising than the headlines suggest, not because leaders are being optimistic, but because they have earned the right to be. These are operators managing real P&Ls through real pressure, and their conviction is grounded in experience.
What made this study different is how it was built. By combining AI-powered interviews with human editorial judgment, we reached a level of candor and analytical depth that traditional research rarely achieves. Leaders spoke more openly when given the space to do so and AI helped us hear them more clearly than ever before.
We are deeply grateful to every leader who participated, named and anonymous, for their generosity during one of the most demanding periods they have faced. That candor is what gives this report its edge.
We built this to be useful, not decorative. Every finding is backed by data. Every recommendation connects to what leaders told us they need. It is designed to serve both the private sector and the public sector equally because the best recoveries are built on shared intelligence.
This is ours.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Resilience Business Pulse draws on 60+ leadership interviews including structured survey data and qualitative data, paid media intelligence, and 300 youth survey responses to build the most comprehensive real-time picture of UAE business sentiment available today.
Here are the eight findings that matter most.
01
100% of leaders are confident in the UAE's trajectory.
94% trust the UAE government to protect the business environment. 78% believe the UAE will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Despite the current uncertainty, more than half would still recommend the UAE as a place to invest today.
02
The market is reshaping, not collapsing.
While over 2/3 of leaders report some level of demand decline, a third of the market is not declining at all: 17% see demand actively growing and another 17% describe demand shifting in shape rather than falling. Across the board, consumers are migrating across channels, price points, and categories moving from offline to online, dine-in to delivery, premium to value, international tourism to domestic spend. The decline is real in places, but the direction of travel is adaptation, not exit.
03
Supply chain disruption is the single biggest revenue threat.
41% cite supply chain disruption as the biggest element impacting revenue. This rises to 77% for FMCG.
04
Marketing budgets are being redirected, not eliminated.
Only 8% of leaders have fully paused marketing. 38% reallocated internally with total spend intact, rising to 60% in FMCG.
05
Sector divergence is extreme.
One crisis, multiple realities. Banking and finance is counter-cyclical, demand for financial services rises in uncertainty. Tech and telecom is functioning as essential infrastructure. Luxury has migrated online, with e-commerce capturing a larger share of discretionary spend. Real estate is consolidating around trusted players and long-term value. Meanwhile, FMCG is absorbing a margin squeeze with demand shifting, and automotive faces some of the steepest operational pressure.
06
Team morale is holding near-normal with real but contained exceptions.
On a scale of 1–10 where 5 represents normal, average morale across the sample sits at 5.0, a resilience finding, not a warning. Most sectors are adapting under pressure rather than buckling. The exceptions are real and worth watching: Logistics registers 3.0 against a high business impact score of 8.0, and Automotive sits below average. Leadership responses of empathy, flexibility, and presence are clearly working across most of the market.
07
Digital transformation is the ultimate engine of competitive agility.
The “Resilience Dividend” belongs to the brands that have built 1:1 CRM and data capabilities; they aren’t just reacting to the crisis, they are using their digital maturity to navigate it with surgical precision.
08
Recovery is sequential, and the large players are not waiting.
Leaders describe a three-gate recovery: clarity and stability first, then population return, then supply chain normalization. But the biggest companies are already investing through the downturn. Consolidation is underway.
The crisis is not destroying the UAE market. It is accelerating a structural shift that was already underway: toward digital commerce, performance media, AI-driven efficiency, and market consolidation. The companies and institutions that read the signals now will define the recovery.
EXPLORE THE REPORT DATA
The Language of Resilience
A linguistic analysis of all interview responses reveals a leadership cohort that frames crisis not as an existential threat, but as an acceleration catalyst. The dominant register combines technical resilience language with cautious optimism.
The Six Forces
Six forces are reshaping the UAE business landscape. Each operates independently, but they interact: supply chain stress drives media reallocation, which creates the brand strategy dilemma, which the youth data helps resolve. Read them as a system, not a list. From tariff-driven supply disruption to the rapid pivot toward performance media and AI-driven efficiency, these forces define the operating reality for every sector in the UAE today.
Not One Crisis, But Several
The disruption hitting the UAE business landscape is playing out very differently depending on where you sit. Nine sectors ranked from most to least impacted.
What the Data Tells Us About What Comes Next
Across every sector and seniority level, leaders describe recovery as a gated sequence, not a single event. The data reveals a consistent three-gate model that emerged independently across interviews: clarity and stability first, then population and demand return, then supply chain normalization.
Actions Grounded in the Data
This report was designed to be useful, not decorative. Below are three actions grounded directly in the data, designed for leaders who need to make decisions this week, not this quarter.
THE EVIDENCE FOR OPTIMISM
This report began with a hypothesis: that the reality on the ground was more nuanced and more promising, than the prevailing narrative. The data confirmed it.
One hundred percent confidence in the UAE’s trajectory. Ninety-four percent trust in the government to protect the business environment. Seventy-eight percent conviction that the country will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Fifty-six percent willing to recommend it as an investment destination today, in the middle of the disruption. A market that is reshaping demand, not destroying it. Leaders who are investing through the cycle, not retreating from it. Teams whose morale is holding near-normal despite real operational pressure. A language of recovery that is practical, forward-looking, and grounded in evidence rather than hope.
The crisis is not over. Supply chains remain stressed. Some sectors are absorbing severe margin compression. The path from here to full recovery runs through multiple gates that will open on different timelines. None of this should be minimized.
But the defining characteristic of the UAE business community in this moment is not anxiety. It is agency. Leaders are not waiting for the storm to pass. They are navigating through it with clear eyes, operational discipline, and the confidence that comes from having done this before.
The best recoveries are not waited for. They are built. The evidence in these pages suggests the building has already begun.
Acknowledgments & How This Report Was Built
This report is a testament to what becomes possible when human intelligence and AI capability work as one system.
Acknowledgments
It would not exist without the sixty business leaders who chose to share their time, their thinking, and their candor during an extraordinarily demanding period. We are deeply grateful to every participant, both named and anonymous, for trusting us with their perspectives.
Special thanks to Arda Arat (Haleon), Walid Fakih (McDonald's), Frank Durrell (Arada), Dalia Salib (Mars), Hussein Freijeh (Snap Inc.), Fares Akkad (Meta), Pierre Choueiri (Choueiri Group), Amr Kamel (Microsoft), Anthony Nakache (Google), and Nour Al Hassan (Arabic.AI & Tarjama) for contributing on the record.
Thanks also to the Publicis Groupe leadership team whose support and participation made this possible. Your openness strengthens the entire ecosystem.
AI in This Report
AI shaped this work at every stage.
Anonymous interviews were conducted through Leonis, an AI interview platform developed within Atelier Potentialis, our proprietary AI capability platform. Leonis adapted in real time, probing, listening, and drawing out the candor that structured surveys rarely reach.
The resulting transcripts were analyzed using AI-driven thematic coding, semantic clustering, and emotional register classification across the full corpus. The report itself was assembled with AI, integrating four distinct data sources into a single coherent narrative under tight timelines.
AI did not replace editorial judgment, strategic framing, or the human relationships that made this study possible. It amplified them. The Resilience Business Pulse is proof of concept for a new model of market intelligence and a reflection of how Publicis Groupe works today.
Data Sources
01
Leadership Interviews
60+ senior leaders across FMCG, media, hospitality, automotive, logistics, and financial services. AI-powered voice interviews via Leonis platform. March–April 2026.
02
Quantitative Survey
n=66 respondents across senior leaders, structured survey data on UAE confidence, demand dynamics, and marketing investment. April 2026.
03
Paid Media Intelligence
Performics MENA proprietary paid media performance data across sectors. March–April 2026.
04
UAE Youth Study
Publicis Groupe Youth Studio. 300+ respondents, Gen Z and Millennials across the UAE. Consumer expectations of brands during crisis. March 2026.