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EDITOR’ S NOTE
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Intelligent CIO Middle East. This month’ s cover story, which can be found on page 14, features Pieter Bil, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Kyndryl Middle East and Africa. He tells us how Agentic AI – systems capable of taking initiative, planning and acting autonomously within human-defined guardrails – is reshaping the future of work across the Middle East by enhancing rather than diminishing human potential.
The region’ s rapid Digital Transformation and appetite for innovation make it ideally placed to harness this new generation of AI, with major opportunities in sectors such as energy, logistics, healthcare, finance and Smart Cities. Bil explains that success will depend not only on technology but also on governance, trust and security, with robust oversight and ethical frameworks essential to ensuring transparency and accountability.
Far from replacing jobs, he says, Agentic AI will create new roles such as AI orchestrators and ethical AI leads, enabling humans to focus on creativity, strategy and collaboration. Kyndryl is helping enterprises transition from experimentation to deployment through its enterprise-grade Agentic AI Framework, which integrates security, explainability and interoperability at scale.
As Agentic AI becomes central to Digital Transformation, Bil believes it will act as a catalyst for resilience, agility and growth, redefining what organisations can achieve in the decade ahead. back-office tool into a strategic capability that supports resilience, scalability and Digital Transformation. It continues to deliver strong ROI in high-volume, rulesbased processes, while also bridging legacy systems and enabling more advanced automation with AI and Machine Learning.
However, experts warn that many deployments fail when businesses overlook process assessment, change management and governance, leading to brittle bots and wasted investment.
Increasingly, organisations are moving beyond task automation to intelligent automation ecosystems, where RPA integrates with low-code platforms, process mining and AI to deliver end-to-end workflows. As adoption spreads across enterprises and SMEs, RPA is no longer seen as a threat to jobs but as an enabler of the‘ augmented employee’, making it both a strategic necessity and a foundation for future competitiveness in the region. You can read more starting on p35.
If you are attending GITEX this year, we hope you have an enjoyable and productive time at the event. May it be a valuable opportunity to explore the latest innovations, connect with peers and gain insights that inspire your business journey.
See you next time.
Elsewhere, we learn how Robotic Process Automation( RPA) has matured in the Middle East, evolving from a
Mark Bowen Editor
www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO MIDDLE EAST 3