Can AI read the room? Predicting policy sentiment with synthetic personas

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

PwC Strategy& Ideation Center, September 26, 2026

by Dima Sayess, Fatima Koaik, Robin Schnider, Pujen Shrestha, George Farajallah, and Dario Krpan





For policymakers, understanding how the public is likely to respond to a new or reformed policy is crucial to that policy’s successful implementation and uptake. Yet measuring policy sentiment through surveys and experiments is often slow, costly, and challenging to scale— especially when the room that policymakers are trying to read is an entire country. The burgeoning field of generative AI presents a new approach to this persistent challenge through the use of synthetic personas.

Synthetic personas are artificial entities generated by large language models (LLMs) to simulate human responses. Studies have found that they can mimic human decision-making with a moderate to high degree of accuracy, and they offer a tool for exploring public responses when traditional approaches are constrained by time, cost, or feasibility. Now, Strategy&’s Ideation Center has extended this research for Middle East policymakers by studying the ability of synthetic personas to predict policy sentiment in three Gulf countries. Read the rest here.

From roots to relevance: Making Arabic the language of opportunity for MENA’s young people

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

Congress of Arabic & Creative Industries/PwC Strategy&, September 25, 2026




The future of Arabic is the young people of the MENA region. They are the ultimate arbiters of Arabic’s role in their lives. They will determine Arabic’s relevance in the Digital Era.

This reality was a primary impetus behind the 2025 Ipsos/Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre Arab Youth Pulse Survey. The survey explores how Arabic relates to the creative aspirations and technological outlook of 4,092 respondents aged 18–25 across 10 MENA countries, alongside the economic challenges they face.

The survey found that Arabic is the dominant language across all aspects of young people’s lives in the region. It is particularly meaningful to MENA youth in social and cultural contexts. Arabic connects them to their families and friends: 91% of respondents use it at home and 85% of them use it with friends. Arabic also serves as a strong anchor to their cultural heritage: slightly more than three-quarters of the respondents (76%) said that Arabic connects them to their roots.

Arabic’s dominance also extends to education, work, online learning, and other digital contexts, but in these contexts, its usage among MENA youth is less prevalent than in social and cultural contexts. The survey respondents report that their use of Arabic falls off at school and work, as well as in digital activities. Correspondingly, their use of English increases significantly in these contexts, with slightly more than three-quarters of the respondents (77%) saying that English is essential for achieving their goals. In short, Arabic is not always the language of opportunity for MENA youth.

This linguistic dichotomy highlights the primary challenge facing Arabic in the Digital Era. The salient issue in this challenge is the gap in Arabic’s educational, professional, and digital utility. The future of the Arabic language depends on closing this utility gap and extending Arabic’s relevance among the 140 million people under age 30 in the MENA region. Read the rest here.

Pragmatic AI sovereignty: Architecting AI value chains for control and continuity in the Gulf countries

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

PwC Strategy&, August 31, 2026

by Chady Smayra, Ramzi Khoury, and Sreedhar Nair



Often, the quest to achieve leadership in the global competition that has arisen around artificial intelligence (AI) is reduced to seeking access to chips. But chips are only one component of the AI value chain. To attain a leadership position in AI, countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and beyond must adopt a more nuanced approach that encompasses the entire AI value chain, including chips, compute infrastructure, cloud platforms, models, data and other elements.

We call this pragmatic AI sovereignty. It seeks to balance the need for control over the AI value chain with the need for continuous access to its components. In doing so, pragmatic AI sovereignty mitigates the risks of both external dependence and internal fragility.

There is no single way to achieve pragmatic AI sovereignty. Government leaders and other stakeholders must consider each aspect of the value chain in terms of its concentration, capital intensity, strategic sensitivity and value creation potential.

Then, leaders can determine which posture or combination of postures can be used to secure access to the layers of value. There are four postures they can use: assure, which secures a layer via agreements, allocation, diversification or contractual safeguards; control, which secures a layer by owning, operating or governing it; partner, which secures a layer via partnership with a global player while maintaining local governance, localization, resilience and exit rights; and influence, which secures a layer using capital, regulation, procurement or market access to shape its standards, capital flows, supplier priorities or policy dialogues.

The GCC countries are well positioned to not only secure their own pragmatic AI sovereignty, but also shape how AI ecosystems evolve across adjacent markets. To succeed and lead in the AI era, they will secure access where it matters, assert control where it is critical and build leadership where value can be captured. Read the full viewpoint here.

Redefining the social contract: Policy options for economic inclusion and fiscal sustainability

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

PwC Strategy& Middle East, January 2025

by Chadi N. Moujaes, Sami Zaki, Mitcha Sleiman and Dr. Steffen Hertog

Following the 1970s oil boom, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)1 countries developed a generous welfare model offering a wide range of benefits to nationals, including public-sector employment, energy subsidies, a variety of non-means-tested categorical benefits, and free public services such as education and healthcare. Governments now understand that this implicit social contract needs reform, given fiscal constraints and demographic pressures. 

Although GCC governments are responding to this challenge, thus far reforms have been piecemeal. Creating a new social contract requires simultaneous fiscal reform, welfare modernization, and labor policy changes. Moreover, governments need to design and implement the contract components specifically for each country’s needs. 

There are five policy tools that GCC governments can consider as they redesign their social contracts, described below: 

• Permanent income supplements for lower earners can make private-sector employment more attractive to nationals. Such income support ensures that the shift away from public-sector employment does not result in “working poor.” 

• Active labor market policies, including lifelong learning, job services, and training, can support nationals’ integration into the private sector. 

• Universal basic income (UBI) can provide all nationals with income security, while maintaining incentives for private-sector entrepreneurship and work. 

• Means-tested social benefits can support those that need it most, while reducing welfare dependency and fraud. 

• Integration of foreign residents through dedicated welfare tools, such as a modest minimum wage, can attract and ensure a ready workforce of foreigners, while reducing the differential in labor rights and costs that discourages employers from hiring nationals.

A new social contract in GCC countries can provide opportunities to all nationals, guarantee basic welfare for all, incentivize and improve the rewards for private economic activity, ensure fiscal sustainability, and minimize economic distortions. Read the full report here.