Abu Dhabi’s most iconic brands are no longer asking what the world’s leading companies are doing, they’re asking what has never been done before. That shift, according to Heather Sullivan, creative strategist and long-time collaborator with some of the emirate’s most recognisable institutions, is the defining story of how the UAE communicates itself to the world today.
Speaking on On Capital Markets with host Laurel, Sullivan pointed to Mubadala’s recently launched “Bold Moves” campaign as the clearest example of this transformation. The Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund, with assets spanning continents and industries, made a deliberate choice to step away from the metrics-heavy, performance-driven content typical of institutional investors. Instead, they commissioned something altogether different, a campaign built around the human stories behind the investments. Sullivan and her team travelled the world, sitting down with the people inside Mubadala’s portfolio companies and the communities shaped by their capital. The result was a campaign that felt, by the standards of global finance, genuinely unusual.
“I’ve never seen any other investment company like Mubadala do something like this,” Sullivan said. For her, the reason it resonated was simple: people connect with people, not spreadsheets. Numbers may demonstrate impact, but they rarely create memory. Emotion does.
That same boldness, Sullivan argues, is visible in Abu Dhabi’s embrace of artificial intelligence. The UAE was among the first governments on earth to appoint a dedicated AI minister, back in 2017, and that institutional commitment has only deepened since. Sullivan cited UAE University’s graduate-level AI programme believed to be the world’s first of its kind, as one marker of how seriously the country is investing in the technology’s future. She also pointed to clients like Presight, whose AI-driven software is already being deployed by government entities to improve efficiency and public safety.
Within her own business, Sullivan says AI has become woven into nearly every stage of the content creation process from pre-production planning and casting to budgeting and production logistics. The technology has made her team faster, leaner, and more precise. But she is clear that it is a tool, not a replacement. The creative judgment, the instinct for what makes a story land, that remains human.
Perhaps the most striking frontier she discussed was the rise of digital twins for corporate leaders. Several CEOs and C-suite executives now have AI-generated digital versions of themselves, enabling them to communicate across languages and markets at a scale no single person could manage alone. It is, Sullivan suggests, emblematic of how Abu Dhabi approaches innovation broadly not with caution, but with full commitment and a genuine belief that what seems impossible today is simply tomorrow’s baseline.