Well, we often talk about cities, we talk about technology, we talk about capital in very abstract terms, but our guest today has been engaged in building and scaling all of them at a grade that is really almost unprecedented. And I'm not over-exaggerating. Mr. Alabbar is founder and chairman of Emaar Properties and Eagle Hills. And he's the visionary behind Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, indeed behind what Dubai stands for. And that is what I think the majority of people know. But you've gone a lot further to capture the Arab e-commerce market. You've set up noon.com. You've set up the first digital bank, ZAND. And you are focusing and talking increasingly about artificial intelligence. And with your focus on Montenegro, you are both pursuing projects in Eco Village Šašić, but you're also talking about an opportunity for Montenegro to be an AI hub and for the country to advance due to capturing the value that AI offers. So could you reflect on that, and in particular on the AI point, which I think is of huge interest to the audience.
Well, thank you so much for inviting me and thank you to some of my friends in the audience. You know, when it comes to AI, I'll have to tell you the story that we all used to AI, but now it's agentic AI. So it's now the AI agent. I mean, AI is old-fashioned now. AI is like last month, now it's AI agent. So I'll give an example of what happened to me. So now this AI agent is a very advanced AI system that actually sits on top of everything. And I'll give an example. For the past few days, we have given it my last two years' emails, my last two years' WhatsApp messages. I operate more on WhatsApp than email. And it took about half an hour and it says, 'Congratulations, Mr. Alabbar, you are in the 1%.' I said, 'Yeah.' And by the way, you just talk to it, you don't even have to type. I said, 'Where am I with the 1%?' He said, 'From reading your WhatsApp messages the past two years, you are in the 1% that always says yes to your wife.' It is so powerful. But why did we give it my two years' email and two years' WhatsApp? Because we are challenging it that in about a month it can actually sit on top of my phone and my email and it responds automatically because it has studied. So AI is a database, so it's fine, but AI agent, it can think, it can digest, it can process, it can predict. So that's why. And then it advised me, it says, 'In about a month, please don't let me answer on your behalf. I prefer that I answer and then you say yes, send out,' because we still don't know each other. It has gone beyond what this world is all about. So I assure you, next year I'm going to come to this conference, but it will not be me. It will not be me. It speaks my language. It uses my mentality and how I think, how I process. And by the way, it gave me a description of who I am. And when I read it, I will cry. It is so much me that I cannot even express. But I did one more thing to it. I gave it the last one year of all my Zoom calls, Zoom videos, board meetings on Zoom, because we record everything. And then it digested all that. It's going to write two books for me. Would you believe that? It will write two books. One book will be called 'Draft Is Ready.' It's called 'Alabbar Design Standard' because I run a lot of design workshops. And then the other one is 'Mohamed Alabbar's Management Style,' very small, 50-page each book. It's like, but our problem, can we think that the machine is so smart, let's use it? That's what's missing. We cannot think like that. So I mean, I don't know, I think that the change that's happening in my companies is so drastic every week, like we don't know, we can't sleep at night anymore. It is really, really... Do you know that last month, Claude have actually... you guys use Claude? Claude actually stopped their new AI app. Did you read in the newspaper?
It stopped it because Claude realized it is so dangerous. It can break through any system that they've given it to Microsoft, they've given it to Google, they've given it to us. Say, 'Excuse me, we are going to release this. Please check it because it's going to break your system. Guard your system. Build more firewalls before we give it to our customers.' Read about it on the internet. It's like mind-boggling, you know. So, my advice to you, stay involved, learn about it. That's the only way we become relevant in what we do.
I completely agree. And I mean, my team can testify that on our small scale, we are fully, fully embracing. I mean, it is as you say, it might be difficult to wrap our head around how does it do it, but then again, it's hard to wrap our head around how neurons fire against each other and create...
It's above my IQ. I'm not that smart. But what is mind-boggling is the speed at which it is becoming better. My e-commerce company, by the end of this year, it will be 50% up in numbers in turnover, 50% down on staff. And normally we don't have a lot of staff, but it will even go further just because the machine is running everything so perfectly.
What would you advise young people then? What would you advise? Because clearly there will be fewer of some jobs or some jobs will completely disappear. There will be opportunities on the other side. What are the skill sets that you will increasingly be looking at?
You know, I don't know if I can advise the young people. I really don't think so. I think they are... I mean, I have 14, 15-year-old. I think these people are so connected to what's going on in the world technology-wise, science, even politics, that they are already in the AI world. They live in an AI world. No, we are very boring people. We started our life trying to learn how to type. You remember? And then we started learning basically how to deal with our laptops. And that's no more. Like, you know, I have my son. He says, 'Why don't you talk to your phone? Why do you type?' You know, they are so advanced. So I really think that all the younger generation, I really have hope in Dubai, in the Emirates, in Montenegro. I really believe that the young people are already in it. I just stress and say, stay connected, keep learning, upgrade, like upgrade weekly because it's moving too fast for us.
Yeah, absolutely. But then again, I was looking at... in preparing for this discussion, I was looking at your recent presentations and you were also recently speaking about the importance of manufacturing and opportunities that manufacturing will be offering going forwards. So perhaps, you know, it's a bit of a dichotomy perhaps you could say. Where do you see opportunity there and what would be the advice there?
Yeah, you know, our challenge was that the oldest industry that has never ever moved is really construction. So boring. It's the same thing. And then we discovered that now in China, the robot can build the building. They can wrap the building. They can ship the building and you can install the building. So I thought, well, why don't we give it a try? So we bought a building, 15-story, built by robots in China, shipped in containers and built in Abu Dhabi. 15-story in 12 days. The only problem is that it has 90% energy efficiency, 100% better quality of air, and I think 10 times more powerful in holding to earthquakes. Surprise. So you have to believe in human capability. You have to believe in science. You really have to be. And by the way, please, if you ever come to Abu Dhabi, come take a look at the building. But anyway, the gentleman who built these buildings in China, for him to do 15-story, it was like a walk in the park because he does 30-story in 30 days. So 15-story is like a joke for him. God knows what he will do in about a year from today.
Yeah. It's sort of that too, actually, that sort of progress in robotics. Yeah. But then for us, I'm sorry, but for us to get involved and do that, because we're really quite keen to learn. I really think all of us, including the people in the audience, we want to learn. We want to see what's going on in the science. And I really think that's what we should give to our children, is that we have to let them be exposed to this huge change. Nothing will be the same. Nothing will be the same at all.
But this is a region of good engineers and this is a region of... so there is a potential there for regional developments. Sort of moving now to more strategic and major projects. You've had developments at scale and often they certainly require cooperation with government and sometimes sort of active engagement. Looking at countries like Montenegro, not just necessarily Montenegro, our region. Where do you see an opportunity for these countries to develop public-private partnerships and bring on board major investors like you who bring that patient capital that we spoke to the Prime Minister about? What is it that you need to see to become part of that partnership?
You know, it's really all about profitable ventures. I mean, you can invite anybody anywhere, but first of all, is it really a profitable venture? What is a profitable venture? A venture is that you've got decent rules and regulation in the country, right? You got good rule of law, transparent process, minimum corruption in what you do. And then do you really have overall good economic policies, political stability? Because I really see you, if I look at Montenegro for example, you know, I do very simple basic science. Your coastline is a little less than 200 kilometers, right? About 180... 290. Oh, that's even better. Say 290, and you are an hour away from Europe, right? You are in Europe, but you're an hour from Italy. Right? Now in Dubai, we have 25 kilometers coastline. 25. We are also seasonal because our summer is unbearable. We only do business in winter. You do business in summer. Why do you have 2.5 million with this coastline close to Europe? Why do you have 2.5 million visitors and we have 20 million visitors? I think you have a good opportunity. Just basic, simple numbers. And by the way, I mean, I love my coastline, but your coastline is so beautiful, right? So, you know, these are basic. I mean, I'm a man who operates in, thank God, 19 countries. I can see the difference. So, it's about supply, demand, policies, and are you welcomed to invest? But keep in mind that wherever you go as a businessman, take your own risk. It is your risk. Like when I went to Albania, you know, the whole of the EU four times refused to invest in Durrës. Four times they refused. Then they said, 'Okay, we found a stupid man, Mohamed from Dubai. He decided to invest.' But I'm so happy that people who bought with me, I think now all their properties are probably two, two and a half times up. But I took risk. So I'm saying, study, do the right thing, check, but then at the end of the day, it's a risk that you have to take. Are you able to take risk? Because some people will tell you, 'Hey, in Germany it is much more secured risk.' I agree, invest in Germany. I'm not like that. So do you see opportunity? Sometimes it's hard work as well. Hard work. But that's life. Nothing is easy.
You have referred to hard work often. Um...
Germans are hardworking people. I have to respect.
It's a sort of well combination of your vision and being relentlessly focused and believing in the vision. Because as you said, when you built Burj Khalifa, you were not an engineer, but it required bringing together the right people and also persevering. But it required a discipline. It required a discipline taking company public.
