UAE’s Ayan Secures Dh2.2M to Revolutionise AI Brand Positioning

Abdelrahman Amr

Last updated 19-10-2026

3 min

UAE startup Ayan raised Dh2.

2 million in pre-seed funding to expand beyond MENA.

It focuses on “AI-led buying”, tracking how chatbots describe brands to customers.

Its platform analyses millions of data points and adjusts marketing, product pages and sales messaging.

Ayan says it already works with more than 50 brands across MENA, Europe and North America.

Investor interest reflects booming regional AI funding, with the UAE “setting the pace”.

Ayan, an AI startup based in the UAE, has secured Dh2.2 million in pre-seed funding from strategic angel investors around the world, as it looks to push beyond the MENA region. In a market where brands are scrambling to stay visible inside AI tools, the timing feels pretty spot on.

The company is building around what it calls “AI-led buying”. In simple words, it tracks how AI assistants describe brands and what they tell potential customers before those people ever land on a company’s website or speak to a sales team. That matters more than it used to, because for many consumers the first impression is no longer a search result or advert, but an answer from a chatbot. I reckon that shift is still underestimated by plenty of businesses across the region.

Ayan says its platform has analysed millions of data points tied to AI-generated brand descriptions, measuring them against how each brand actually wants to be positioned. From there, it applies the findings across product pages, marketing campaigns and sales teams, then checks how those changes later influence responses generated by AI systems. It is a bit of a new battleground, and not one every founder saw coming.

According to the company, it is already working with more than 50 brands across MENA, Europe and North America. Founder and chief executive Pablo Charron said Ayan is focused on helping brands understand, and shape, the version of themselves that consumers are increasingly meeting through AI platforms rather than through traditional channels.

The startup has also brought in some heavyweight names. Vincent Carvalho, chief growth officer for M&A Group at IFS, has joined as a founding board member, while Christian Pedersen, group CEO of Cegid, has come on board as an adviser. That said, advisory names alone never guarantee lift-off, well... I mean, execution is still the whole game, but these appointments do suggest Ayan wants to move quickly and with some serious commercial backing.

The wider backdrop helps explain why investors are paying attention. Data from MAGNiTT shows that AI and AI-enabled startups in MENA raised $678 million in the first half of 2026, an 81% jump year on year. UAE-based companies accounted for 93% of that total, which is no small thing. For readers at Arageek, this is the kind of figure that keeps coming up again and again: the UAE is not just joining the AI race, it is setting the pace in the region.

I’ve seen many startup pitches over the years that sounded clever but felt like a bit of a faff once you looked closer. This one is different, at least on paper, because it goes after a very specific problem: how brands appear when AI becomes the front door. And believe it or not, that front door is getting busier. As more people ask ChatGPT-style assistants what to buy, which platform to trust or which provider to choose, companies may definately need tools that tell them what story the machine is telling on their behalf.

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