emirates7 - Artificial intelligence’s new phase—one defined by active deployment rather than distant aspiration—came into sharp focus as global innovators addressed audiences at BRIDGE Summit 2025, the world’s largest debut media event. Across multiple sessions, speakers from Meta, Yango, Huawei, and HeyGen explored how AI is reshaping human connection, content creation, and consumer behavior, and why Abu Dhabi has become the place where these conversations now converge.
Meta’s Vice President for EMEA, Derya Matras, opened with a keynote titled Superintelligence: The Next Frontier of Human Connection. She described how AI is shifting daily routines, relationships, and work, and began by noting the energy in Abu Dhabi after the Grand Prix. Matras argued that AI must become contextual and supportive—woven naturally into everyday life—but that this transition requires significant long-term investment.
“AI reaching and exceeding human-level capabilities will require a holistic and long-term commitment over a very long amount of time for anyone,” she said, emphasizing the essential backbone of frontier model infrastructure. She pointed to rapid progress in AR and wearables, predicting that intelligent personal agents—delivered through form factors such as smart glasses—will reach billions and “empower, augment their capabilities” through real-time translation, contextual overlays, and hands-free interaction.
Daniil Shuleyko, CEO of Yango Group, examined AI’s influence on consumer expectations. With Yango now firmly embedded in the UAE market through ride-hailing and maps, he argued that audiences increasingly demand intelligence built into the core of a product rather than added as a surface-level feature.
He described a rising generation that expects a brand’s “AI wow”—and quickly moves on when the intelligence is merely cosmetic.
Huawei’s Shi Ri, CTO of the ISP & Media Business Unit, expanded the lens to global production workflows. He demonstrated how cloud architecture and next-generation networks now allow professional-grade content to be generated through media large models trained on industry datasets—from story libraries to audiovisual archives. These systems, he explained, unify what human creators once assembled piece by piece.
Like Meta’s Matras, he stressed the primacy of infrastructure. The future, he said, depends on hybrid media cloud architectures that blend public cloud capacity for large live events with private environments for data governance and edge systems for real-time processing. At the heart of it all lies one requirement: computing power.
Wayne Liang, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of HeyGen, offered a detailed view of how AI avatars are entering mainstream creative workflows. He introduced a digital twin of himself capable of producing multilingual video messages within minutes, illustrating HeyGen’s mission to compress production timelines while preserving quality.
Liang shared examples of how global brands—including McDonald’s, Klaviyo, and Apple TV—use HeyGen to localize content, shorten production cycles, and tailored communications. He also unveiled HeyGen’s newest capability: real-time, interactive avatars designed for immediate conversation and on-demand engagement. He invited attendees to explore these tools at the HeyGen booth.
These sessions form part of a 300+ session program that reflects BRIDGE Summit’s scale and ambition. The debut edition of BRIDGE Summit takes place from 8–10 December 2025 at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi.
Meta’s Vice President for EMEA, Derya Matras, opened with a keynote titled Superintelligence: The Next Frontier of Human Connection. She described how AI is shifting daily routines, relationships, and work, and began by noting the energy in Abu Dhabi after the Grand Prix. Matras argued that AI must become contextual and supportive—woven naturally into everyday life—but that this transition requires significant long-term investment.
“AI reaching and exceeding human-level capabilities will require a holistic and long-term commitment over a very long amount of time for anyone,” she said, emphasizing the essential backbone of frontier model infrastructure. She pointed to rapid progress in AR and wearables, predicting that intelligent personal agents—delivered through form factors such as smart glasses—will reach billions and “empower, augment their capabilities” through real-time translation, contextual overlays, and hands-free interaction.
Daniil Shuleyko, CEO of Yango Group, examined AI’s influence on consumer expectations. With Yango now firmly embedded in the UAE market through ride-hailing and maps, he argued that audiences increasingly demand intelligence built into the core of a product rather than added as a surface-level feature.
He described a rising generation that expects a brand’s “AI wow”—and quickly moves on when the intelligence is merely cosmetic.
Huawei’s Shi Ri, CTO of the ISP & Media Business Unit, expanded the lens to global production workflows. He demonstrated how cloud architecture and next-generation networks now allow professional-grade content to be generated through media large models trained on industry datasets—from story libraries to audiovisual archives. These systems, he explained, unify what human creators once assembled piece by piece.
Like Meta’s Matras, he stressed the primacy of infrastructure. The future, he said, depends on hybrid media cloud architectures that blend public cloud capacity for large live events with private environments for data governance and edge systems for real-time processing. At the heart of it all lies one requirement: computing power.
Wayne Liang, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of HeyGen, offered a detailed view of how AI avatars are entering mainstream creative workflows. He introduced a digital twin of himself capable of producing multilingual video messages within minutes, illustrating HeyGen’s mission to compress production timelines while preserving quality.
Liang shared examples of how global brands—including McDonald’s, Klaviyo, and Apple TV—use HeyGen to localize content, shorten production cycles, and tailored communications. He also unveiled HeyGen’s newest capability: real-time, interactive avatars designed for immediate conversation and on-demand engagement. He invited attendees to explore these tools at the HeyGen booth.
These sessions form part of a 300+ session program that reflects BRIDGE Summit’s scale and ambition. The debut edition of BRIDGE Summit takes place from 8–10 December 2025 at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi.