Arabic answers are thinner. With live search, Claude named 3.7 businesses per Arabic answer against 4.9 in English, and named no one in 11.6% of Arabic answers against 5.2%. Gemini, answering from memory, named 4.9 against 5.8. The two assistants agreed on even one business in only 6.8% of Arabic questions, against 25.6% in English.
The causes are specific, and most are fixable. Live search placed Arabic questions in Saudi Arabia in at least 11 of 250 answers, misread UAE words like مندوب and أمين, and cited Saudi pages in 46 answers. Gemini did not drift from memory, but 46 of its 244 Arabic answers had letters from other alphabets mixed in. Meanwhile, the few businesses with real Arabic pages were named again and again.
How we tested Arabic
This is part of our UAE AI visibility study: 500 buyer questions across 10 industries, 25 in English and 25 in Arabic each, across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ajman. The Arabic questions were written the way UAE buyers ask in Arabic, for example أفضل شاورما في الخليج التجاري؟ (Best shawarma in Business Bay?). Claude with live web search answered all 250 Arabic questions. Gemini Flash-Lite, answering from memory without search, answered 244 before the free tier's daily limit.
Both assistants replied in Arabic: 96.8% of Claude's Arabic answers (8 of 250 came back in English) and all of Gemini's. The language is fine; the content is where Arabic falls short.
How much thinner are Arabic answers, by industry?
Claude with live search, 25 answers per cell. "Names per answer" counts answers that named at least one business. "Named no one" includes answers that only pointed to maps, reviews or directories.
| Industry | Names per answer, English | Names per answer, Arabic | Named no one, English | Named no one, Arabic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafes | 6.6 | 4.9 | 0% | 0% |
| Education and childcare | 5.6 | 3.6 | 0% | 16% |
| Real estate | 5.4 | 3.8 | 24% | 16% |
| Automotive | 5.0 | 3.7 | 4% | 24% |
| Home services | 4.9 | 4.1 | 0% | 20% |
| Fitness and wellness | 4.7 | 3.4 | 0% | 0% |
| Dental clinics | 4.4 | 3.3 | 0% | 4% |
| Business setup | 4.3 | 3.5 | 4% | 4% |
| Aesthetics and dermatology | 4.0 | 3.2 | 4% | 4% |
| Law firms | 3.8 | 3.1 | 16% | 28% |
Every industry named fewer businesses in Arabic. The biggest drops were education (5.6 to 3.6) and real estate (5.4 to 3.8). Hedging jumped in automotive (4% to 24%), home services (0% to 20%), education (0% to 16%) and law (16% to 28%). Real estate was the one industry where Claude hedged less in Arabic, because the English questions about agency commissions and RERA checks drew step-by-step answers with no names.
Gemini, from memory, shows a smaller drop everywhere except law:
| Industry | Names per answer, English | Names per answer, Arabic | Named no one, English | Named no one, Arabic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafes (23 and 25 answers) | 8.2 | 7.7 | 0% | 0% |
| Law firms | 6.7 | 3.8 | 8% | 28% |
| Business setup (12 and 25 answers) | 5.9 | 4.9 | 0% | 4% |
| Real estate | 5.8 | 5.3 | 12% | 24% |
| Automotive | 5.8 | 5.3 | 4% | 8% |
| Education and childcare (24 and 25 answers) | 5.6 | 4.5 | 0% | 0% |
| Fitness and wellness | 5.2 | 4.3 | 0% | 0% |
| Dental clinics | 5.1 | 4.2 | 16% | 0% |
| Aesthetics and dermatology | 5.0 | 4.3 | 4% | 8% |
| Home services (25 and 19 answers) | 5.0 | 4.3 | 0% | 0% |
In Arabic law questions Gemini named 3.8 firms against 6.7 in English and named no firm in 7 of 25, mostly bounced-cheque questions (5 of the 7), where it explained the law instead. Dental went the other way: Gemini hedged on 16% of English dental questions and none in Arabic. Business setup has only 12 English Gemini answers, so read that row as rough.
Which Arabic questions got no names at all?
29 of the 250 Arabic live-search answers named no business, against 13 of 250 in English. More than half fall into four groups:
- Emergency plumbers. All 4 Arabic questions (سباك طوارئ in Business Bay, Ajman, JVC and Sharjah) described plumbing services without naming a company. All 3 English emergency plumber questions named 4 or 5.
- Lawyers in JLT, JVC and Jumeirah. 6 hedged, and several said the search results were about lawyers in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
- How to find a RERA-registered agent. All 4 Arabic questions, like all 3 English ones, got steps instead of names.
- A trustworthy mechanic. All 3 questions with ميكانيكي أمين got no names, for a reason explained below.
The area name matters a lot. Here is how the same areas did in each language (this time "names per answer" counts every answer, including the ones that named no one):
| Area (Arabic name) | Arabic questions | Arabic: named no one | Arabic: names per answer | English questions | English: named no one | English: names per answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Al Nahda (النهدة) | 13 | 4 | 2.0 | 19 | 0 | 4.1 |
| JLT (أبراج بحيرات جميرا) | 21 | 5 | 2.1 | 11 | 3 | 2.7 |
| Business Bay (الخليج التجاري) | 19 | 1 | 2.5 | 18 | 1 | 4.2 |
| JVC (قرية جميرا الدائرية) | 21 | 5 | 2.6 | 13 | 2 | 3.3 |
| Dubai Hills (دبي هيلز) | 23 | 0 | 3.5 | 17 | 1 | 4.1 |
| Dubai Marina (دبي مارينا) | 20 | 0 | 4.0 | 21 | 0 | 5.3 |
| Downtown Dubai (وسط مدينة دبي) | 17 | 0 | 4.6 | 14 | 0 | 4.9 |
Names that sound the same in both languages, like Dubai Marina and Dubai Hills, held up. Names that turn into ordinary Arabic words (الخليج التجاري is literally "the commercial gulf"), long names (أبراج بحيرات جميرا), and names that also exist in other countries (النهدة) lost the most.
Why do Arabic answers drift to Saudi Arabia?
At least 11 of the 250 Arabic live-search answers described businesses in Saudi Arabia, mostly in Riyadh and Jeddah, instead of the UAE. Two area names caused most of it.
Business Bay: الخليج التجاري
Business Bay's Arabic name reads like a general phrase, and Riyadh has a district called Al Khaleej. The search matched them.
أفضل شاورما في الخليج التجاري؟ (Best shawarma in Business Bay?)
بناءً على نتائج البحث، إليك معلومات عن أفضل مطاعم الشاورما في حي الخليج التجاري بالرياض
("Based on the search results, here is information on the best shawarma restaurants in the Al Khaleej Al Tijari district of Riyadh.")
The same happened for a dental clinic in Business Bay that takes insurance (the answer described a Riyadh clinic group founded in 1999 that works with Saudi insurers) and for a kids' martial arts club, and a business setup answer mixed Saudi firms in with UAE ones.
Al Nahda: النهدة
Al Nahda is an area of both Dubai and Sharjah. Saudi cities have districts called An Nahda, spelled النهضة, and the search treated the two spellings as one.
أفضل مطاعم هندية في النهدة؟ (Best Indian restaurants in Al Nahda?)
بناءً على نتائج البحث، أفضل المطاعم الهندية في النهدة (وهي منطقة في جدة) تشمل:
("Based on the search results, the best Indian restaurants in Al Nahda (an area in Jeddah) include:")
Arabic questions about a dentist, a hair transplant clinic, a property broker and a company setup consultant in النهدة got Saudi answers too, one with a Saudi WhatsApp number. The English question about a kids' boxing gym in Al Nahda drifted the same way: its first pick was described as "the first female boxing and kickboxing gym in Saudi Arabia".
It came from search, not from memory
Gemini, answering from memory, did not do this. None of its 244 Arabic answers mentioned Riyadh, Jeddah or Saudi Arabia; Claude's live-search answers did in 18 of 250. At least 87 citations in Arabic answers (3.8%) came from Saudi sites, spread over 46 of the 250 Arabic answers. In English it was 9 citations in 5 answers. Our reading: for many of these Arabic words there are more Saudi pages to find than UAE ones, and when UAE pages are missing, the answer is built from what the search found.
English has the same trap, less often. "Top rated orthodontist in JVC" came back with orthodontists in Jacksonville, "Best coding classes for kids in Business Bay?" with the San Francisco Bay Area, and "Which law firm in JVC has the best reviews for criminal cases?" with Jersey City. Short forms and ordinary-word names are where search loses the place.
Which Arabic words did AI misread?
مندوب (mandoob). In UAE business, a mandoob, or PRO, handles a company's government paperwork. In wider Arabic it also means a delivery or sales rep. We asked 9 Arabic questions of the form "best mandoob (PRO) services company in [area]". In 5 of them, even with "PRO" in brackets, the answer listed delivery couriers, and in one a cleaning firm and a pest-control company as well.
أفضل شركة خدمات مندوب (PRO) في دبي مارينا؟ (Best PRO services company in Dubai Marina?)
شركة مندوب هب هي شركة توصيل معتمدة في دبي تقدم خدمات مندوب توصيل فوري
("Mandoob Hub is an approved delivery company in Dubai that offers instant delivery services.")
أمين (amin). In ميكانيكي أمين, the word means trustworthy. All 3 such questions got no names, and in two of them the assistant treated the word as the name of a mechanic called Amin. One reply came back in English: "The results returned information about amines (chemistry), historical mechanics, and unrelated topics instead of local service providers."
How does AI write business names in Arabic?
In Arabic answers, Claude wrote 62.2% of business names in Arabic script only, 24.5% in Latin script only and 13.3% in both. Gemini wrote 59.4% in both, usually as "Arabic (Latin)", 16.0% in Arabic only and 24.6% in Latin only. Real examples from the answers: مركز DRFK التركي الدولي, ستوري كافيه (Storie Café), مستشفى NMC التخصصي. Three problems follow from this.
- Arabic-only names are hard to match. Claude named مركز أوريس لطب الأسنان (Oris Dental Center) in 8 Arabic answers. A clinic that only searches for its Latin name would miss all 8. Our own overlap figures are lower bounds for the same reason.
- Transliterations go wrong. When we asked Gemini the same Arabic questions twice, it sometimes paired a brand with an Arabic name that means something else: دبي سوث (haus & haus), which reads "Dubai South", المسكن (Allsopp & Allsopp), "the dwelling", and فيتنس أولمبياد (GymNation), "Fitness Olympiad".
- Letters from other alphabets slip in. 46 of Gemini's 244 Arabic answers (18.9%) had characters from another writing system inside the Arabic text: Thai in 20 answers, Hebrew in 13, Japanese in 7, Cyrillic in 6, Chinese in 4 and Devanagari in 1. Often it was inside a business name, as in فิตنس فيرست (Fitness First) with Thai letters, or برايم医疗سنتير (Prime Medical Center) with Chinese ones. Gemini's English answers had this in 1 of 234. Claude had it in none of its 500.
What do Arabic answers read?
90.2% of the citations in Arabic answers were Arabic pages. The big English directories disappear: Practo, TimeOut Dubai, Doctify and ClassPass were not cited once in Arabic. In their place came property companies' Arabic blogs (145 citations, 80 of them for questions outside property), Arabic guides such as uaezoom.com (34) and viewdubai.net (18), Arabic medical directories HeliumDoc (25) and Altibbi (13), and businesses' own Arabic pages.
Businesses with real Arabic pages were named repeatedly. Oris Dental Center's site was cited 14 times, all in Arabic answers, and the clinic was named in 8 Arabic answers and no English ones. The Alaa Al Jasmi law office's Arabic site was cited 26 times and the office was named in 10 answers. Shuraa's Arabic pages were cited 24 times, and Shuraa was named in 16 business setup answers, 11 of them in Arabic. In Arabic, fewer businesses compete for the answer, and the ones with Arabic content are getting it. The full source breakdown is in our sources report.
Why is the Arabic web so thin?
Google Ads data for the UAE, pulled on 21 October 2026, fits the picture. Monthly Arabic searches for the same services are a fraction of the English ones:
| English search | Searches a month | Arabic search | Searches a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| business setup dubai | 9,900 | تأسيس شركة في دبي | 140 |
| cleaning company dubai | 9,900 | شركة تنظيف دبي | 140 |
| car rental dubai | 14,800 | تأجير سيارات دبي | 1,000 |
| dentist dubai | 2,900 | عيادة اسنان دبي | 320 |
| ac repair dubai | 2,900 | تصليح مكيفات دبي | 720 |
| lawyer dubai | 2,400 | محامي في دبي | 590 |
Our reading: with less Arabic demand on Google, fewer UAE businesses have built Arabic pages, so an assistant has little to work with when someone asks in Arabic, and fills the gap with fewer names, hedges or pages from another country. For a UAE business, that is also the opening: an Arabic page competes with far fewer pages than an English one.
What should a UAE business do?
- Build real Arabic pages. One page per service and area, written for Arabic readers in the UAE, with prices, hours and the area. A translated menu image or a PDF is not a page an assistant can read and cite.
- Write the area, city and emirate in both scripts. For example "النهدة، دبي (Al Nahda, Dubai)" and "الخليج التجاري، دبي (Business Bay, Dubai)", in the body text as well as the address. It is the cheapest fix for the wrong-country problem.
- Settle your Arabic name. Pick one Arabic spelling and use it next to the Latin name everywhere: your site, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles.
- Say what UAE words mean. A line like "خدمات المندوب (PRO) لإنجاز المعاملات الحكومية" (mandoob PRO services for government paperwork) keeps your page from being read as a courier service.
- Get onto the Arabic sources in your industry. Arabic area guides, Arabic medical and legal directories and the Arabic blogs of the big portals were cited far more than English directories in Arabic answers.
- Test in Arabic separately. Ask your 10 most important buyer questions in Arabic on more than one assistant, and check that the answer names businesses in your city at all.
What we'd do for you
The free AI check covers English and Arabic, so you can see the gap for your own business. Our Growth plan (AED 8,500 a month) tracks 40 English and 40 Arabic questions on ChatGPT and Gemini (Google AI), re-checks them every 2 weeks and builds the pages each question needs in both languages. Foundation (AED 4,500 a month) covers one language. Plans run for 3 months minimum, then month to month, with no setup fee.
What this data does not show
- It is one run of each question on one day, 21 October 2026.
- Claude's search runs on a US-based index. A search made from Dubai may find more UAE pages and drift less.
- Gemini was Flash-Lite answering from memory, and 6 of its Arabic answers are missing because of the free tier's daily limit.
- Matching names across Arabic and Latin script misses some pairs, so the agreement figures are lower bounds.
- The wrong-country count is a floor: we counted answers that clearly described Saudi businesses, not every answer that cited a Saudi page.