AI is altering how we store on-line, making our experiences extra personalised. Good assistants suggest merchandise, negotiate offers, and even deal with customer support. Large retailers and smaller companies are utilizing AI to enhance search, provide chains, and checkout. 

If AI corporations (and their buyers) have their manner, buying will quickly be targeted on chatting with an assistant, with companies automating every part behind the scenes.

Dubai-based Qeen.ai (stylized as qeen.ai) is working to make this a actuality within the Center East and past. The startup has raised $10 million to scale its platform, which gives autonomous AI brokers for e-commerce companies.

Prosus Ventures, a significant e-commerce investor, led the seed spherical, which isn’t solely one of many largest within the Center East’s AI trade however in MENA total. The VC believes Qeen.ai is well-positioned to convey AI-driven automation to retailers as AI brokers reshape on-line marketplaces.

Founders Morteza Ibrahimi (CEO), Ahmad Khwlieh (CTO), and Dina Alsamhan (CBO) began Qeen after years of engaged on AI at Google and DeepMind. 

Ibrahimi, in an interview with TechCrunch, mentioned that they honed in on e-commerce partly opportunistically: all three had labored at Google Adverts in numerous roles throughout their time with the search big, they usually and noticed first-hand how different alums constructed extremely profitable e-commerce companies. On prime of their AI experience, the trio knew the way to run adverts and optimize web optimization exceptionally properly and thought it might be a robust mixture.

Google and DeepMind background

E-commerce has been steadily rising for years, however aside from sure spikes (notably throughout vacation intervals) it nonetheless accounts for between 15% and 20% of retail gross sales (even in a mature market just like the U.S. it was solely simply over 16% at of the final quarter, per the U.S. Census Bureau).

Qeen’s thesis is that this might develop if the e-commerce processes had been run higher. Success in e-commerce, they believed, needs to be about nice merchandise and operational effectivity — not simply who can sport the advert system finest. That perception led them to construct a platform that helps e-commerce sellers develop with out counting on adverts as their main driver.

The worldwide e-commerce market is increasing quick, pushed by altering client habits, digital funds, and higher logistics. In MENA, the market is predicted to hit $50 billion by 2025, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE main the expansion.

Qeen.ai is tapping into this growth by growing AI-powered advertising and marketing brokers designed for e-commerce companies throughout MENA. These absolutely automated brokers deal with content material creation, advertising and marketing, and conversational gross sales, permitting small and mid-sized retailers to compete with out counting on costly companies or deep advert experience.

Not like conventional options, Qeen’s AI constantly learns from client interactions utilizing its proprietary RL-UI expertise, refining advertising and marketing methods in real-time for higher outcomes.

From Google adverts to AI-driven e-commerce

Whereas AI-powered gross sales and customer support instruments usually battle with excessive churn charges, as companies steadily swap platforms, Qeen.ai claims to see stronger retention in e-commerce and advertising and marketing. Ibrahimi attributes this to how deeply Qeen’s AI brokers combine into retailers’ workflows, making them a core a part of each day operations fairly than a replaceable device.

A key characteristic driving engagement is dynamic textual content personalization, which adjusts content material based mostly on person habits and machine kind. For instance, an iPhone person may see product particulars in bullet factors for fast studying, whereas a laptop computer person will get an in depth paragraph.

Since launching its Dynamic Content material agent in Q2 2024, Qeen.ai has served over 15 million customers, generated 1 million SKU descriptions, and helped retailers improve gross sales by 30%, in response to the corporate.

“We labored with a consumer to optimize their content material and web optimization. After utilizing our AI plugins, their search quantity elevated by 40%, and their Google rating improved from 22 to 18—all with zero handbook effort. The complete course of was absolutely autonomous,” mentioned Ibrahimi, giving one other occasion the place Qeen’s AI capabilities have shone. 

Qeen employs a subscription-based pricing mannequin and incorporates value-based pricing, a rising pattern in AI companies. At present, qeen generates income by way of two subscription fashions: content material automation, the place companies pay per energetic SKU, usually $0.10 to $0.20 per SKU monthly. Then its AI advertising and marketing agent whose pricing is predicated on per-interaction quantity. 

Ibrahimi declined to reveal the variety of companies utilizing qeen, in addition to income development metrics. Notable shoppers embody Dubai Retailer, sixth Avenue, and Jumia.

Standing out… with expertise

Ibrahimi left DeepMind in early 2023 to co-found the startup. That very same yr, the corporate raised a $2 million pre-seed spherical earlier than launching its product in June 2024. With its current $10 million seed spherical, qeen has raised a complete of $12 million in beneath a yr.

Throughout this time, AI-powered advertising and marketing brokers have gained traction worldwide, with a number of startups, notably within the U.S. and Europe, getting into the house. Opponents like YC-backed Uncommon and Rankai are tackling comparable challenges, so how does Qeen stand out?

Effectively, for one, most of those AI startups concentrate on developed markets, whereas Qeen as a substitute is prioritizing the Center East first—a area largely underserved by AI-driven advertising and marketing automation instruments. In keeping with Ibrahimi, Qeen will serve small companies throughout MENA, set up a robust foothold, after which increase globally.

Deep tech experience and a robust expertise pool give Qeen an edge over new entrants, the chief govt added. Two of its co-founders earned PhDs in AI over a decade in the past, lengthy earlier than AI turned mainstream. Ibrahimi himself beforehand led a DeepMind analysis crew specializing in self-learning, goal-driven AI brokers—the identical expertise that now powers Qeen.

“Probably the most thrilling issues we’ve seen is the standard of AI expertise right here,” Ibrahimi mentioned. “We’ve attracted nice expertise each regionally and internationally—folks have left the Bay Space, Europe, and the UK to return right here and construct with us.”

Qeen.ai at the moment employs over 25 folks throughout the UAE and Jordan.

The seed funding will help qeen’s development technique by increasing its AI platform, scaling its crew, and attracting extra clients, it mentioned. Wamda Capital, 10X Founders Fund, and Dara Holdings are among the many different buyers on this spherical.


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