GoWit & Publicis Forge AI Alliance to Conquer MENA's Retail Media Boom

DUBAI, UAE – February 24, 2026 – In a landmark move set to reshape the region's digital advertising landscape, AdTech provider GoWit and communications giant Publicis Media Middle East have announced a strategic partnership to scale commerce and retail media across the Middle East, North Africa (MENA), and Türkiye. The collaboration pairs GoWit’s advanced AI-powered platform, GoWit One, with Publicis Media’s immense regional scale and advertiser portfolio, signaling a major push to standardize and optimize a rapidly expanding market.

This alliance arrives at a pivotal moment. The retail media market in the Middle East and Africa is on a steep growth trajectory, projected to surge from $2.77 billion in 2024 to over $4.7 billion by 2030. This boom is fueled by a massive digital transformation, with regional e-commerce sales expected to climb towards $180 billion by 2035. The partnership aims to capitalize on this growth, creating a high-velocity connection between global brands and high-intent shoppers in key markets including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Türkiye.

Taming the Digital Gold Rush

The MENA region's retail media sector is experiencing a gold rush, but this rapid expansion has created significant operational challenges. As digital advertising spend in the region climbs past $6.95 billion, brands and agencies are grappling with a complex and fragmented ecosystem. This new partnership is positioned as a direct response to these growing pains.

By integrating Publicis Media’s portfolio of global and local brands into GoWit’s premium retail media inventory, the collaboration promises to accelerate monetization for retailers and drive measurable outcomes for brands, particularly within the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), electronics, and home improvement sectors.

Tony Wazen, CEO of Publicis Media Middle East, noted the strategic timing of the alliance. “Retail Media in MENA and Türkiye is entering a more mature phase, where long-term value will depend not only on technology, but also on strong operating models, governance, and execution discipline,” he stated in the announcement. “Our partnership with GoWit reflects our focus on helping build a more structured and scalable environment for brands and retailers across the region.”

A Unified Front Against Fragmentation

At the heart of the partnership is GoWit One, an AI-powered platform designed to solve retail media's most pressing issue: fragmentation. Currently, agencies and brands must navigate a dizzying array of disparate retail networks, each with its own dashboard, specifications, and reporting methods. This creates massive operational inefficiencies and slows down campaign execution.

GoWit One functions as a unified operating system, bringing multiple retailers, markets, and campaigns into a single ecosystem. The platform leverages intelligent automation to replace slow, manual workflows, with GoWit claiming it can eliminate up to 98% of the manual advertising operations (AdOps) work typically required to manage campaigns across different networks. This allows advertisers to launch multi-market omnichannel campaigns—spanning on-site, off-site, and in-store placements—with unprecedented speed.

“This partnership brings together world-class demand and next-gen Retail Media technology,” said Emrah Adsan, Co-Founder and CEO of GoWit. “Together with Publicis Media, we’re building a truly unified and intelligent Retail Media ecosystem for MENA and Türkiye.”

This sentiment was echoed by Cemil Toksöz, CSO at GoWit. “Through GoWit One’s AI-driven ecosystem, we move past the complexities of manual campaign management, allowing our partners to focus on high-impact strategy and rapid scaling with a single solution.”

Publicis Media's Strategic AI Power Play

For Publicis Media, this collaboration represents a significant strategic maneuver. By becoming the exclusive pilot agency partner for GoWit One in the MENA region, the communications behemoth is embedding a powerful AI engine directly into its regional operations. This move is designed to create a distinct competitive advantage in a market crowded with formidable players like Amazon Ads and Google Ads.

The partnership enhances Publicis Media’s ability to offer end-to-end solutions, from strategy and media buying to execution and optimization. It directly supports the agency's ambition to create a centralized “Commerce Command Center” in the region, as noted by Chirag Galundia, Head of Commerce at Publicis Media. This framework aims to unify campaign excellence, digital shelf intelligence, and AI-powered optimization under one roof.

Mazen Mroueh, Head of Retail Media & Partnerships at Publicis Media, framed the deal as a leadership move. “This collaboration reflects our ambition to lead the evolution of Commerce and Retail Media across high-growth markets,” Mroueh explained. “By combining advanced AI-powered technology with our regional scale and commercial expertise, we are enabling retailers to unlock new revenue streams and empowering brands to drive measurable growth.”

Navigating the New Privacy Landscape

While the partnership promises enhanced targeting of high-intent audiences, it does so against a backdrop of rapidly evolving data privacy regulations across the region. Key markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have recently implemented comprehensive data protection laws inspired by Europe’s GDPR, while Türkiye continues to align its own Personal Data Protection Law with these stricter global standards.

This new regulatory environment places a premium on transparency and user consent. The partnership directly addresses this by enabling identity-led activation through Publicis Media’s Core ID solution, which is designed to ensure privacy-safe targeting in high-intent retail environments. The collaboration's architecture allows brands and retailers to reach addressable audiences closer to the point of conversion while measuring performance in a closed-loop, privacy-compliant environment.

This focus on privacy is not just a legal necessity but a strategic advantage, building trust with consumers and future-proofing advertising strategies against further regulatory shifts. By integrating privacy-by-design principles, the GoWit-Publicis alliance is poised to offer a model for responsible and effective retail media activation.

The fusion of GoWit's agile AI technology with Publicis Media's market-leading scale and expertise is set to introduce a new level of sophistication and efficiency to the regional advertising ecosystem. As brands seek more intelligent and measurable ways to connect with consumers, this partnership provides a powerful blueprint for the future of commerce in one of the world's most dynamic digital economies.