The Five Percent — AI Strategy Day for the DMCC Ecosystem

The rush

Everyone is buying AI. Almost no one is planning it.

Across boardrooms — in Dubai and everywhere else — the same scene is playing out. The budget is approved, the pilot is launched, the press note is drafted. The board is reassured. And the honest reason, more often than anyone admits, is the fear of being the one company that waited.

Momentum is not a strategy. The organisations that will own their industries in 2027 are not the ones that adopted AI first. They are the ones that chose their battles deliberately — and knew, before spending, exactly how each initiative would pay.

64%

of CEOs admit they invest in new technology before fully understanding its value to the business.

IBM CEO Study · 2025

12%

have an AI roadmap that extends beyond a single year.

IBM CEO Study · 2025

The record

What happens next is already documented.

95%

of generative AI pilots deliver zero measurable impact on the P&L. Just 5% of integrated pilots are extracting millions in value.

MIT · State of AI in Business · 2025

75%

of AI initiatives failed to deliver their expected ROI over the past three years.

IBM · 2025 CEO Study

74%

of companies have yet to show tangible value from their use of AI.

BCG · Where's the Value in AI? · 2024

60%

of AI projects will be abandoned through 2026 for lack of AI-ready data.

Gartner · 2025

The question is no longer whether to invest in AI.
It is how to be in

The five percent

The five percent are not luckier, larger, or better funded. The research is consistent: they select fewer initiatives, tie every one of them to the P&L, prepare their data and their people — and work from a strategy their leadership actually owns. That is a discipline. It can be built in a day.

14 October · The working session

Not a conference. Not a course. A strategy, built.

This is a closed working session designed by consultants, not a lecture series. You work on one company all day: your own. By evening, you hold a completed first draft of your 2027 AI strategy — scored, prioritised, and ready for your team to extend and deploy.

A boardroom table with a glowing strategic decision map projected onto its surface

Before · The groundwork

You arrive prepared.

A structured diagnostic lands with your invitation. You complete it with your leadership team before the day: your strategic posture, your data reality, your candidate AI initiatives. No slides to admire — raw material to work with.

The day · The room

You do the work.

Guided by G&K's strategy method, you pressure-test every candidate initiative against the eight criteria that separate the five percent from the rest — strategy fit, business impact, data readiness, cost, risk, scalability, people, time to value.

After · The deployment

You leave armed.

You walk out with your framework, your scored initiative portfolio, and a 2027 action plan — a working system your team can extend, re-score, and run every time a new AI proposal lands on your desk.

What you walk away with

Yours to keep. Built on your business.

Everything produced in the room is confidential to you — this is your strategy, not a case study.

Your AI strategy framework — the complete G&K method, calibrated to your company's strategic posture, not a generic template.
A scored initiative portfolio — every AI idea in your pipeline ranked on weighted criteria, so the next board conversation is about evidence, not enthusiasm.
A 2027 roadmap skeleton — sequenced phases from data foundation to deployed capability, with the success metrics defined before the spend.
A repeatable discipline — your team re-runs the method on every future proposal, long after the day ends.

The room

Small by design. Senior by definition.

This day is built for the people who own the decision: chief executives, founders, owners and entrepreneurs operating within the DMCC ecosystem — from scaling startups to established trading houses.

Admission is by invitation, and the room is kept deliberately small. You will work alongside peers who run companies, not delegations who report back to them.

Who

CEOs · Founders · Owners

Where

Dubai · within the DMCC district

Investment

US$ 2,500 per participant

Admission

By invitation only

Delivered by G&K

Consultants who build strategies, not slideware.

Galal & Karawi Management Consulting is an advisory practice working at the intersection of corporate strategy and applied AI — advising Fortune 500 companies and government organisations across the Middle East. The methods used on 14 October are the same instruments G&K deploys in those engagements — grounded in the current global evidence base from MIT, McKinsey, IBM, BCG and Gartner, and sharpened through practice.

The day is delivered within the DMCC business community, for the companies shaping the future of trade from Dubai.

Dubai AI Seal — verified AI supplier and AI business user

Dubai AI Seal certified

G&K holds the Dubai AI Seal — verified as an AI supplier and AI business user by the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence. The guidance in the room carries the same standard Dubai applies to its own AI economy.

14 October · Dubai

2027 will reward the companies that planned it.

Fee US$ 2,500 per person Admission Invitation only Seats Deliberately limited

Registration and invitations are managed by DMCC.

Invitations issued through DMCC channels

Confirmed participants receive their invitation and the pre-day groundwork ahead of 14 October.