Commercial AI consultancy · Dubai and the GCC
What took a week takes an afternoon. We rebuild commercial functions around AI.
VAIY is a commercial AI consultancy in Dubai. We rebuild marketing, sales and commercial operations around AI: the strategy, the training of the teams who will run it afterwards, and the systems where something genuinely needs building. Most of these teams already hold the licences. Very few have changed the work around them, which is the only place the cost actually falls.
UAE enterprise AI maturity research 2026 · MIT 2025 · Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Why now
AI spending in the UAE doubled in a year. 95% of it changed nothing.
The cost of producing commercial work - campaigns, proposals, tender responses, monthly reporting, board material - fell two years ago. Budgets, agency scopes and team structures were set before that happened, and the difference is absorbed quietly every quarter until somebody examines it.
The advantage is still available. It stops being an advantage the moment it is common.
- +105%Growth in UAE enterprise AI investment in a single year, almost all of it on licences and tooling.
- 95%Of that expenditure has produced no measurable return, because the work around the tools was left alone.
- 7%Have actually redesigned how the work is done. Their cost per output is already falling.
- NowThe gap between those two groups compounds every quarter, and it does not close on its own.
We begin with the commercial question, and reach the technology second.
VAIY was founded by a former Chief Commercial Officer, so we start where the cost sits rather than with the technology. It is a sequence that produces a shorter recommendation, and a considerably cheaper one.
Where the work applies
Marketing, sales and operations, where the change is most readily measured.
Campaign reporting, proposal writing, pitch decks, lead qualification and tender responses are high in volume, repetitive and already costed, which makes the effect of a redesign straightforward to evidence.
Marketing
- Concepts and first drafts arrive within hours rather than across a week.
- Variants, resizing and localisation are handled internally rather than rebilled.
- Monthly reporting is assembled automatically, and read rather than compiled.
- Personalisation extends well beyond what the headcount allowed.
Sales
- Proposals are returned on the day the requirement is understood.
- Every meeting is preceded by the research that would otherwise be skipped.
- The CRM stays current, because maintaining it ceases to be a task.
- Tenders are answered without removing a senior person from the field for a week.
Operations
- Board material is assembled in hours, so the time goes on the argument rather than the formatting.
- Meeting notes become tracked actions without anyone transcribing them.
- Margin analysis is produced when a decision needs it, not when it is scheduled.
- Documentation is maintained as the work changes rather than reconstructed afterwards.
Services
We are engaged in three ways, and frequently in sequence.
Each is scoped independently. Most clients begin with the first and proceed once they can see what the next stage is worth.
Commercial AI Strategy
The commercial plan reconstructed with AI inside it, rather than appended to it.
- Where the marketing, sales or operations function is demonstrably slow, expensive or under-covered
- Which work returns in-house and which still justifies an agency
- Governance, client data and UAE data-protection exposure
Deliverable. A ninety-day plan. Every item carries a named owner and a number.
Commercial Team Training
One day per cohort - marketing, sales, operations - conducted entirely on the campaigns, pipeline and reporting that team is already responsible for.
- Up to twenty people, delivered online
- Live workflows rebuilt during the session rather than demonstrated
- A prompt library in your own tone, for each role, retained afterwards
Deliverable. Three workflows genuinely changed by the following morning, not a certificate of attendance.
Commercial Operating Model
The two or three workflows carrying the greatest cost - monthly reporting, proposals, tender responses - rebuilt rather than accelerated.
- A baseline established first, so the result can be evidenced
- The workflow rebuilt in full, since pilots rarely survive a quarter
- Agency scope reviewed against what is now produced internally
Deliverable. A measurably lower cost per output, in your own figures rather than ours.
How we work
Every engagement is designed to end.
We set the strategy, rebuild the workflows carrying the most cost, and train the people who will run them. Then there is a documented handover and we leave. An arrangement that depends on the consultant staying has transferred nothing, and across three years it costs a great deal more than one that did.
Systems
Where a strategy requires something built, we build it ourselves.
Our own developers build what we propose, and we propose a system only where configuring existing tools will not do.
Internal assistants
Trained on your products, pricing and past proposals, so the answers are yours rather than generic.
Workflow automation
The manual transfers between CRM, marketing platform and reporting that consume more senior time than anyone accounts for.
Commercial reporting
Pipeline, campaign performance and margin assembled automatically, so the discussion starts with the position rather than its preparation.
Customer-facing applications
Conversational interfaces and personalisation built to your brand standard, because customers judge them as the brand.
Framework
Four levels at which AI can be applied, only two of which alter cost.
Automation
The same work, faster. No advantage, since everyone has the same tools at the same price.
Personalisation
One campaign adapted across every segment and account, at a granularity headcount could not reach.
Operational
The process is redesigned rather than accelerated. This is where cost per output actually moves.
Business
New propositions become viable, and revenue you had no economic way of servicing before.
Framework from the Executive Diploma in AI for Business, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
The diagnostic
Where is your own function on these four?
Ten questions, routed to your role, plus the AI tools and CRM you already use. It returns a profile across all four levels rather than a single rank.
Two minutes. No email required to see your profile.
Founder
A commercial career first, and a technical one alongside it.
“Commercial judgement and technical capability rarely reside in the same place. Almost everything useful in this field happens where the two overlap.”Robyn Vey, Founder
Robyn Vey has spent her career on the commercial side of businesses that sell complicated things to demanding buyers: luxury goods, automotive, equestrian and technology. She was most recently Chief Commercial Officer of Stephex Group, a €180M European group, where she built the commercial function for a market the business had not previously operated in, and grew revenue by 143.75% and profit by 32% in the course of doing so. Earlier work included negotiating and running commercial partnerships with Rolex, Audi and Hermès across international markets.
She has also worked from the other side of the table: in technology and blockchain ventures, and as founder of an AI venture of her own, specifying systems and getting them into use. Very few people advising on AI have been responsible for revenue, and very few who have been responsible for revenue have built software. The useful work sits in the overlap.
VAIY is a small senior team of commercial strategists and developers. Robyn leads every engagement personally, from Dubai, across the UAE and the wider GCC. More about VAIY and how it works →
- Executive Diploma in Artificial Intelligence for Business
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford - Chief Commercial Officer, Stephex Group
€180M automotive, equestrian and lifestyle group - Head of Growth, Aventus Network
enterprise blockchain infrastructure
Robyn's full professional record is available on LinkedIn.
Robyn was the only person on my executive team who could both make the commercial case for a new system and specify what it actually had to do. What she put in place was still in use by the team long after she had left.
- Alan M.V., Chief Executive Officer, Aventus NetworkCommon questions
Seven questions we are asked in every first meeting.
Why address this now rather than next year?
Because the cost of producing commercial work has fallen while most budgets remain unchanged, and the difference is absorbed by the organisation each quarter. Enterprise AI investment in the UAE increased by 105% in a single year, so competitors are already committing capital. However, 95% of that expenditure has produced no measurable return, which means the advantage remains available to organisations that approach it properly. That position will not hold indefinitely: the 7% who have genuinely restructured their operations are compounding an advantage in cost per output.
We already work with an agency. Why bring this in-house?
You may not wish to bring all of it in-house. However, a substantial proportion of agency billing covers production work - first drafts, variants, resizing, reporting documents - and that is precisely the category where costs have fallen most sharply. The objective is to be deliberate about which half of the relationship justifies a premium. In most cases the strategic half continues to, and the production half no longer does.
Do you advise only, or do you also build systems?
Both. Some clients require strategy and training alone, and we will say so where that is the case, as systems that are not needed represent the most expensive category of expenditure. Others require something built: an assistant trained on their own content, an integration between the CRM and the marketing platform, or an automated reporting layer. Our development team delivers these, so that recommendation and implementation originate from the same organisation rather than being transferred to a third party who was not involved in the analysis.
What does this mean for our existing team?
It changes the composition of their working week. Production work compresses and judgement-based work expands: more campaigns tested, broader account coverage, faster analysis for the board. How the resulting capacity is deployed is a commercial decision for your organisation, not for us. We would note that the structure of commercial teams is changing across the market, and it is preferable that your people are equipped for the revised version of the role.
How is an engagement priced?
Engagements are priced per programme rather than per participant or by the hour, because what an organisation pays should follow the scope of the work rather than the number of people attending. Three factors determine the figure: how many functions are in scope, whether the engagement is advisory alone or continues into rebuilding the workflows afterwards, and whether anything genuinely needs to be built. A strategy engagement for a single function therefore sits at one end of the range, and a multi-cohort programme with a development component at the other. We will give you a figure during the first conversation rather than across several meetings, since arriving at a number slowly serves nobody.
How long does a programme take?
The strategy is agreed in weeks rather than months, because the analysis is bounded by the functions in scope rather than by the size of the organisation. Training runs one day for each cohort, sequenced with leadership first and the teams afterwards, usually spread across several weeks so that no function loses all of its people at once. Where workflows are rebuilt, that work is measured against a baseline taken beforehand and re-measured four to six weeks later, which is the point at which a change either survived contact with the ordinary working week or did not. A complete programme therefore runs to approximately ninety days, which is also the horizon the commercial plan is written against.
What happens once you leave?
Your teams continue without us, which is the intended outcome rather than a risk to be managed. Everything rebuilt during the engagement is documented at the point at which it is built, the prompt libraries are written in your own tone and remain with the people who use them, and each item in the ninety-day plan carries a named owner inside your organisation rather than inside ours. We remain available for occasional review, and a number of clients use us in that way, but the engagement is not constructed so that it has to continue. An arrangement that depends on the consultant remaining has transferred nothing, and over three years it costs considerably more than one that did.
Start here
Thirty minutes on where your money and time are actually going.
Tell us the function and roughly how many people, and we will spend half an hour on it with you: where the cost is concentrated, what changing it would take, and what it is worth - in your numbers. Most people leave with one or two things they can put a figure against immediately.
- Two fields, and you are done. The rest lets us arrive already knowing something about you.
- Robyn replies personally within two working days to arrange a time. Not a brochure, not automated messages.
- Thirty minutes, by video call. If there is not enough here to be worth your money, we will say so.
Thirty minutes is a cheap way to find out how large the difference is. The work that follows is designed to end, not to become a standing line in your budget.
Or write directly to hello@vaiy.io, or work through the free assessment first. Dubai, across the UAE and the wider GCC.
VAIY