JUST THE BEGINNING

Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for MENA at Google, is leading the regional base for a more than trillion-dollar company, one of the biggest tech giants in the world. As Al increasingly powers growth in the Middle East, he's creating partnerships to make sure the technology is understood and used in the right way.

- CLAUDINE COLETTI

While many major tech companies in the world have become a part of our day-to-day existence, few can boast of becoming as ingrained as Google. “To Google” has become a common verb for billions of the company’s users over its 25 years of growth, and today, as AI takes the reigns, the tech giant is far from finished influencing the way we communicate. Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for MENA at Google, knows this well, having just overseen the launch of the Arabic version of its AI language tool, Bard, which was released in July 2023 to much fanfare. “We’ve been amazed by the feedback, which has been overwhelmingly positive,” says the Dubaibased French national.

The Arabic AI language tool is able to recognize questions given in 16 different dialects while responding in modern standard Arabic (MSA). As well as recognizing dialects that differ significantly across the Middle East, Bard has “code-switching” abilities, meaning that questions can be asked in a mix of dialects and languages—part Egyptian and part English, for example—be recognized, and responses be given in MSA. “This is amazing because it’s reflective of the colloquial language young users in MENA use. We’re very excited to see how people are going to use it,” Nakache adds. Chances are, they’re going to use it prolifically. The Middle East has one of the youngest and most tech-savvy populations in the world, with more than half of the population under the age of 30.