Forum Playback: Where does AI fit on the list of topics keeping CEOs awake at night?

Forum Playback: Where does AI fit on the list of topics keeping CEOs awake at night?

Patrick FitzPatrick [P.F]: We're going to start with a simple question for all three of you guys, and I'll ask you to do them in turn. 

Karim, what did you use AI for in the last week, in your personal life or professionally?

Karim Awad [K.A]: Actually, my friend Mirna Arif was just making fun of me because I took a course on Copilot last week, and apparently it was there for Microsoft to see. 

I use all forms of AI in order to make my job a bit more efficient. There are certain tasks that I think are becoming a little bit too repetitive for me.

These things go from translating letters, for example, that I need to send to the government, in a lot less time than I need if I'm doing it on my own, to certain documents that I send to the board that I need to prepare personally. That can take a lot less time if I use an AI app. And in general, as a company, we use Copilot for a lot of security purposes, more than any other [use].

On a personal level, I use it for everything from organising family trips to making sure that personal contracts you're signing do not have any legal liabilities on you personally, and so on.

P.F: What about you Dasha?

Dasha Badrawi [D.B]: The last thing I used it for was to help me define what I'm going to say today in this panel and if I made a case that the situation in Egypt is broadly looking better, give me some pushback.

P.F: Give you some pushback. And did the robot agree that the situation looks good for Egypt, or bad?

D.B: It started off that it's very good and everything is kind of rosy. And then after I gave it a few more prompts, [it went], "Oh, maybe it's not quite what I thought. Let's revisit." So it's interesting how you can have a live, active conversation and actually get it to change its mind. That's probably the most recent one.

Before that, I'm famously disorganised, and so I'm trying to find, got it the other day, an agent that can help me get organised, build CEO dashboards, and lead the company in a slightly more efficient way. So I'm coming to terms with it.

But an interesting thing, as we're all approaching how we have to use AI: I think it's going to be [about] how the young generation and our new intakes are coming in and how they're using AI. I think it's going to be a bottom-up, more than a top-down-led, approach.

P.F: That they're going to inspire you to try something new. Hesham, what about you?

Hesham Mahran [H.M]: Honestly, we're using AI every day, in everything. 

Personally, I had a very big delegation from the group last week, and I was preparing for it. So I used AI a lot during the past few weeks in order to prepare everything: the visits, documentation, presentations and everything. It really took me lots of AI use cases to have this prepared. 

I also had a very big meeting with His Excellency the President, so I had to prepare very well for this meeting as well, and I used AI a lot in order to have this done. That's on a personal level.

On a professional level, we use AI in lots of verticals. We use it in the network, we use it in commercial, we use it in HR. Recently I hired a chief AI officer, [because] we believe that AI is core and it is the future. We as a group, and in Orange Egypt as well, are having a big focus on AI, and we will definitely talk a lot about it today.

P.F: Fantastic. I'd like to ask each of you — and Hesham, we'll go in reverse order here, so we'll start with you. All of us are in some phase today of preparing our 2027 strategy and budget. Some of us are finishing. Some of us may not have started because we had to organise an event, hanshoof. — As you do this, what are your two top priorities for next year? And if AI is not in the top two, where does it fall?

H.M: Honestly, AI is in the top two. It's in everything. When we think of investment, we use AI so that we can have the right investment. When we think of people, AI will help us to attract the right people, to train the best people and also to keep our talents. 

If we're speaking about revenues, AI now is a foundation and a module that can help you generate revenues by developing customised solutions, stretching your customers, giving them personalised offers and so forth.

It's like an opener to lots of things. So AI is not an option.

P.F: If you were looking at it, Hesham, does it make a bigger difference on the top line or on the cost? Do you get more money from sending out a blast that is literally 3 million individual offers tailored to that person's personal use case? Does that generate more return for you, or is it on the cost management, cost optimisation side of the business?

H.M: It's actually both. In terms of cost efficiency, it helps you to direct your costs and direct your investment, which is very key. We're investing billions of pounds every year in the network, so if this investment is not directed in the right place, then you're just wasting money.

That's what we have started. Last year we started to use AI in directing our investment, and we have seen the results already, either in traffic or in revenues, as well as customer satisfaction, which is very core. We're using AI now in digital, so our customer experience and our NPS are enhanced using AI.

The most important thing as well, as operators and as telcos, is to invest in innovation to create use cases for consumers, enterprises and also for the government, which is very key. We're helping the government big time using AI. Any of you who has travelled recently will find in Cairo Airport a big screen called Ask Mariam.

That's an AI interface where passengers can simply ask Mariam anything, and she will help them with the gates, the schedule, booking any transportation, hotels and everything. That's an AI thing. 

Recently as well, with the public prosecution, we have also launched an AI interface in our application where Egyptians do not need to go anymore to any family prosecution office. You can simply go to the application and use this AI agent, and this agent will do the job, so you don't need to do anything. 

Last thing, which I'm really proud of, is investing in training and in youth and so forth. So as I told you, Patrick, AI is not really an option.

P.F: Dasha, what about you? What's in your top two? And if AI is not in your top two, where is it?

D.B: I'll be contrarian and I'll tell you it's not in the top two. But it kind of prevails across all of the priorities as a tool for improving the goals and objectives we're setting. So my top two: land acquisition. We're a real estate company and that's our fuel, so improving our land bank is our top priority.

And then probably moving towards improving efficiencies in the team: retention, acquisition and improvement. So I mean, innovation or data or IT has always been a very important and growing part of any business. It's accelerated, I think, over the last few years with AI.

But is AI replacing the lifestyle malls that we're building, the homes that we're creating, or the spaces that we've created to bring people together? No, but it can definitely improve efficiencies and performance and all of these things. I would hesitate to say it's the be-all and end-all.

At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, it's a tool, and we have to use that tool to improve our businesses.

P.F: Do you have an AI rollout project or training project or anything that is helping institutionalise the use of technology? 

D.B: Across, from top down to bottom up I do genuinely believe that it's the bottom-up that will prevail.

P.F: Karim, what about you?

K.A: I'm a dinosaur like Dasha, so it's not a top-two priority. At the end of the day, we're a publicly listed company, so there are other priorities that we will have to take [precedence], especially with everything that is happening around the region today.

But I would have to say that not AI, but technology as a whole is playing a more important part in our business on a daily basis. This goes from brokerage to, as I said, efficiencies: [processes] that can be made a lot more efficient through the use of technology. 

As a firm, we have dedicated people for artificial intelligence. We have dedicated people for making sure that all the departments are getting the proper training that they need. And as Dasha was saying, the training is being led from the departments themselves. Every department knows its own needs, its own uses, how it can make their lives a lot more efficient, a lot less work for them, a lot better service for our clients.

So they lead what they need in training, and our AI professionals give them that training. But to say that it is a top-two priority for us in 2027 would not be absolutely 100% correct.

P.F: We've talked about the concern that war is going to squeeze Egypt through [the] rising price of oil, persistently high interest rates [and] unstable capital flows. 

Dasha, you've said that Egypt might be getting more attention next year from Gulf players; you had a slightly more optimistic view. And Hesham, you've argued that connectivity, energy potential and people put us in a position where we might attract significant interest from outside players in infrastructure here.

I'm curious: if you were each to zoom out to 35,000 feet, what figures more in your plan for next year — the overhang risk from war, or the opportunity to go after something in Egypt because of the war or because of technology? 

Dasha, what about you? You'll start first.

D.B: Overhang or opportunity? As an optimist by nature, I would like to think, one, that the war is going to be short-term, but that in all cases, even if it lengthens a little bit, we are [a] net beneficiary. You alluded to it in your intro: the Gulf states' perception as a safe haven has been pierced.

I think that there's a lot of money that's flowing back from the Gulf, whether it's from investment or remittances, that's coming to Egypt, both Cairo and the North Coast, for example. And I think [it's] real estate and industry and other sectors as well. So I think that if Egypt plays its cards right — and obviously there are challenges, the challenges of the high oil prices and the effect on the currency and everything — but if we play our cards right, I think that we can be a net winner in the region, certainly. 

And even if you look at global investors today looking at the region, I think Egypt has moved up in the rankings significantly, with our big market [and] maybe relative stability compared to previous years. 

P.F: You have a Saudi shareholder. Has their view of you changed in the last 12 months?

D.B: I'm working on it. Saudis are fiercely patriotic and fiercely excited about their market and their prospects, I think justifiably so. 

In the last few years, I think there has been a little bit of a dent, again, just given the regional situation. And so I think I'm making ground in persuading them that Egypt is definitely worth more consideration than it has been in previous years.

P.F: Hesham, you just had your group CEO here. Is it EUR 25 million of investment coming for AI-first or innovation startups? 200,000 training roles for young Egyptians. Investments in universities. At the same time, Orange's global capex, excluding the Middle East and North Africa, is actually going down.

So you guys are committing more money here. Why? What prompted the visit?

H.M: The whole world knew quite well the importance of Egypt during the past few months of the war. So it is now seen as the safest zone for investment, and it attracts lots of investments as well. So we as a group believe that Egypt can be the hub for the Middle East and Africa. Actually, this EUR 25 million is 50% of what we're investing in Africa.

So our envelope to invest in startups in Africa is EUR 50 million, and half of it is directed to Egypt. So this tells you the weight of Egypt in the Middle East and Africa and the importance of Egypt for the group as well. 

When we were discussing the number of students or the number of people that we want to train, 200,000, although it's a very challenging number, it's doable. We used to train around 10,000 people in the past couple of years. So you can imagine, we're multiplying this number by 20 in the coming few years. This tells you that we know quite well that there are lots of talents in Egypt. 

Half of Egyptians are youth, these young talents can help not only the economy, but also help Orange do things better. So investing in talents is really key, and using Egypt as a hub is another important point.

If I may just take you one step back to the investments that Dasha talked about: we have everything for building data centres here. Hyperscalers are now looking at Egypt with a different view. They used to look at some areas in Africa to build their hyperscale data centres. Now they're considering Egypt as one of the [options]. 

P.F: So we’re on their radar now? 

H.M: Yes. We have the energy: we have sun and we have wind, so you can have a lot of green energy, which is a core component in building an AI data centre.

We have lots of space and lots of land, so the government can help by dedicating the right land for this. We have submarine cables connected to everywhere in the whole world. So our location, the weather and the talents are three main components that attract hyperscalers to invest in Egypt.

So I believe in the coming era, we will see a lot of developments on this front.

P.F: Karim, you were among the first to lead a major Egyptian business into the Gulf. You built out a deeper footprint than the vast majority of us have there. What's your view? Is it the overhang or the opportunity heading into the year?

K.A: Entering 2026, we were very strong believers that this would be Egypt's year, because I think we were in quite a sweet spot for the economy, and we had a lot of great factors working for us. Naturally, the war is completely out of our control. Having said that, I would say what the war did show to global investors in general is a country that is committed to a certain policy, especially when it comes to monetary policy, because we've been through a lot of crises.

Previously, we usually used to go back on what we say when it comes to monetary policy and sticking to a flexible FX rate. I think for the first time that any of us here can remember, the central bank has stuck to a flexible FX rate, as painful as it is to everyone involved. But I think the message that it sent to the global investor base was super important.

And this is why you continue to see flows coming in from foreign direct investors into the stock exchange and so on and so forth, because there is this belief that the country is not defending the currency through its reserves.

The other thing is, while we do not see a lot of movement in terms of foreign direct investment through acquisitions of companies and so on, you're seeing a ton of FDI flowing into the country through greenfields and brownfields: a lot of Turkish, a lot of Chinese, a lot of Indian investors coming in.

Obviously, the Suez Canal Economic Zone is booming when it comes to greenfields. So again, the war can be used to our advantage, in addition to everything that Hesham pointed out in terms of your strategic location, your labour force and all the other factors that we're all well aware of. I think the most important thing that the war showed is that we stuck to our policy, especially when it comes to monetary policy.

And this was a super important time for all investors.

P.F: Absolutely. I can't have you, man, on stage and not ask you about deal flow. 

You're taking Halan public. We're going to have Mounir [Nakhla] on stage right after the coffee break. 

What does MNT — in a pipeline, you perhaps can't say names, but I can say some names that may include BdC, that may include Misr Insurance, that may include, I'm told, maybe an education company There are some interesting players in the market — what should we look forward to for deal flow out of Egypt this year, going into 2027? And how does that stack up against the Gulf, in your view? The tougher question.

K.A: We're actually expecting a very strong fourth quarter for the Egyptian stock exchange, which started with MNT Halan, a fantastic non-bank finance platform, and I think Mounir will do a much better job talking about it than me. It also started previously, at the beginning of February this year, with a small offering for Gourmet. 

So the case for Egypt's IPOs has been building up. We have three other IPOs in our pipeline, hopefully before year end, one of which, without going into details, I think is going to be a massive game changer for the Egyptian stock exchange. It is very sizable in terms of the free float that will be offered here.

P.F: Would you like to give us a hint? 

K.A: No. I think the principals in this particular deal will not be too happy, but it is hopefully coming close. And it is one of the largest IPOs that we've seen in probably the last 15 to 20 years in terms of US dollars. Why this is important for me is because it will be the first true test of large foreign investors coming back into the stock market.

Hopefully they can make some money, and with that, the flows will start going into the other stocks as well. We're also seeing some very good flow into M&As.

When it comes to your question on the Gulf, naturally, the inflow in the Gulf is not going to be there today. We did do one IPO in Kuwait right before the war, and we did do an accelerated bookbuild within the ceasefire. But in general, I do not expect a lot of IPO activity in the GCC. However, I would continue to say that whether it is the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, they continue to be markets that are very well followed by investors, [with] very interesting companies over there as well.

So I think, should Dasha's optimistic view of the war ending soon [prove right], you will see a much better year in 2027.

P.F: From Dasha's lips to God's ears. 

With the three of you having exposure to consumers in one way, shape or form, my theory remains that the Egyptian consumer, with a bit of help from the BNPLs, has, for better or worse, kept the economy afloat in the past three or four years. 

I'd like to start with Dasha. At your malls, do you have a sense of whether consumers are buying more or paying more for the same things?

D.B: We have some data that probably we need to use AI more to delve deeper into, but definitely we've seen large increases in the spend. Our two big assets are on the west and east: Mall of Arabia and District 5. In Mall of Arabia, like for like, we've seen probably [a] 30% year-on-year increase in spend. In District 5, 50%, but not necessarily like for like, because [there's] a little bit more offering.

A lot of it's driven by more traffic,which suggests that the ticket size is similar, maybe lower, but there are just more people. There are more coming out to spend a little bit. 

We're a consumer-led economy, and I think that the state of the consumer is very important to us. If we can make the case that the consumer has more discretionary income to spend, then we can really see real growth in the economy.

I think it's been difficult to make that case over the last few years, especially post the 2024 devaluation, where our middle class was decimated, with prices increasing through removal of subsidies and inflation and all of this. But I'd like to think there's a bit of a catch-up now, and maybe in the next three-year cycle, we start seeing some real increase.

For our business, there's a lot of focus on real estate these days and what's the state of the industry. It helps us to maybe focus our attention now more on the consumer side, which was stagnant over that period, [versus] the residential store-of-value side. For example, we haven't had any new mall openings or new mall land growth opportunities since we took Mansoura on a few years ago — that's opening this year. 

So I think now is the time to really start looking at, "Let's grow that side of the business," instead of the position of the last three or four years, which was protect and preserve, which leans you more towards the residential side of the business.

P.F: I'm not asking you to say "in real life versus AI" as I ask this, but you are long physical retail. [Do] you see there being room for more malls, for more people wanting to go buy in stores?

D.B: I think now, yes. I think we've seen over the course of the last few years that the spend in the more disorganised [sector] — when I say disorganised, we're kind of going back to the pre-mall type thing, these street locations and these ad hoc locations that are springing up everywhere — everyone is surviving, and maybe even thriving.

So the evidence of the spend is there. We're growing by this number, and we've got these new household formations of a million-plus; they are spending. So I think there is now a case for growing that side of the business, for sure.

P.F: Hesham, what does this say about how you need to price or change products heading into 2027, whether that's on the consumer or the small business side of the equation?

H.M: Honestly, adding to what Dasha and Karim said, the pressure on cost is definitely increasing the dependency on consumer financing and so forth. And honestly, consumer finance is now not only limited to [the] low-class segment; [the] high-end segment is also using many of the consumer finance options.

valU is definitely one of them. So it's now the same. 

Investing in this consumer finance ecosystem is one of our priorities for the years to come. We want to be a partner in this ecosystem. We have the customers, we have the data, so we have almost everything that allows us to be one of the big players in consumer finance.

So partnering with one of the players, acquiring one of the players or doing it on our own: all options are there. And we're moving steadily on this front.

P.F: What will decide for you acquisition versus greenfield versus partnership?

H.M: It depends on the investments required. It depends on the payback. It depends on the value that this organisation will add to us, and vice versa. So it's a lot of components together, and the three options are currently in place, and my colleagues are working hard on it. So this is the thing that we believe is very key. 

The other thing, which we have been investing a lot in and will keep on investing in, is providing IT services in Egypt. We started in 2021. We were very small. I believe my lovely CEO back then said, "Someday our IT services will reach 50% or more [of] the enterprise revenues."

And here we are today: the IT services that we're selling to the government and to the private sector are now reaching close to 50% or more, and we're growing. So this is one of the most important things that we want to do. Not only in Egypt, honestly; our ambition is much bigger than this.We want to sell services outside Egypt as well. 

P.F: So you want to export? 

H.M: So this is the real ambition. We believe that we can be a very aggressive player on this front. We have the skills. We're better value — we're not cheap — but we're better value. So we will add a lot on this front. And we have no problem at all to partner, even with the government, to do operations outside Egypt as well.

So we're very open, we're very flexible and we have the courage.

P.F: Ladies and gentlemen, these are three people that I love spending time with, and I could ask them questions endlessly. I have, however, only five minutes, and it's time to start the speed round. The speed round, which is what we used to call our newswell – less than 30 seconds each, tough questions. 

Dasha, where do I buy real estate next year?

H.M: Upper Egypt, Dasha. That's where I come from.

[Laughter]

D.B: I think you have to select very carefully. There's a clear filtering-out of the market, and there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers. So it's a flight to quality. Decide where you think the quality providers are and buy there.

P.F: Karim, Is there a bubble in consumer finance?

K.A: I personally don't think so. I'm definitely biased, given our investment in the sector. I think, contrary to a lot of what is being said, consumer finance plays a super important role, as Hesham said, in making sure that the economic cycle in Egypt continues to work.

We still continue to see very low default rates across the sector. I know I have 30 seconds, [so] what I would say needs a lot more support is microfinance these days, because microfinance also plays a very important role in making sure the very small enterprises in places across Egypt that no one serves are being served and are helped to grow. 100%.

P.F: A 100%. For all three of you: how many Egyptian pounds will buy USD1 at the end of next year? Wallahi ya gama’aa I pray to God I will never have to ask that question again, but we're not there yet.

H.M: Karim can answer.

P.F: Everybody has to answer this one. We want three views, and we're going to average them. 

K.A: I’ll start. Our macroeconomist's views are not mine. Okay? Our macroeconomist's point of view is that there are two scenarios. 

If the war continues, God forbid, he thinks it will be in the range of EGP52 to EGP54. If the war ends, we see a scenario for appreciation where the currency will go to EGP49 to EGP51.

P.F: Dasha, what are you going to use for your budget?

D.B: Can I dig out my AI answer?

P.F: I think I’ll take a Dasha answer. 

D.B: My AI answer was EGP56 to EGP58, I think, but also subject to war conditions. But I think the EGP55 to EGP60 range is reasonable.

P.F: Hesham? 

H.M: We're now building our budget, so I believe EGP53 to EGP54 is the fair thing. Hopefully not that much. But let's hope the war ends, as Dahsa said, so we get back to EGP48 to EGP49.

P.F: All right, my last question, and my apologies in advance to anybody who has direct reports in the audience. 

What is the average raise increment that you guys will be giving in your next budget cycle?

Forgive me if you have direct reports in the audience, and forgive anybody who's sitting here with a direct report who is going to be asking, "Boss, what do you think?" Who would like to go first?

D.B: I have to balance the equation between the shareholders and the management. It's always a battle to make foreign shareholders understand that we've been going through three years of 20%-plus type cycles. So is this year going to follow that?

I think the shareholders will probably resist hard. So I think it'll be closer to inflation-linked.

P.F: Inflation-linked, okay. Hesham? 

H.M: 20%, I believe, is fair this year.

P.F: 20, okay.

K.A: We're still working it out these days, but what we usually do is in increments. Our least-paid employees get the highest percentage increases, which is likely to be in the range that both Dasha and Hesham alluded to. 

Our highest-paid employees will not get salary increases at all this year.

P.F: At all?

K.A: At all.

P.F: Okay.

K.A: Sorry.

[Laughter]

P.F: Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking the guys for being here today.

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