Most AI showreels in Dubai look alike by now. Slow motion, glowing product, an astronaut if somebody was feeling brave. Lovely. A reel tells you very little about whether a team can deliver a finished ad, in Arabic and English, that gets past your legal department.
A disclosure before I go further: iklipse, the AI production agency I run, works with brands and ad agencies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf, so I am one of the people you would be choosing between. Discount my opinions accordingly. What follows is the set of questions I would want any client to put to us, and to everyone else on the shortlist.
Who is directing the film?
AI builds shots. Somebody still has to decide what each shot should do and when it is good enough. That person is the director, and you should know their name before you sign. Ask what they have directed before and whether they will be on your calls.
If the answer is a list of tools, keep looking. Every agency in the city can buy the same subscriptions. The difference sits with the people choosing what comes out of them, and checking it before you see it. I wrote more about that in why quality control is the product.
Can you show me finished ads that actually ran?
Tests are easy to make look good. A single beautiful frame with no product, no logo, no legal line and no client feedback proves the operator has taste and spare time. Ask for finished campaigns with real clients, the full cut at delivery quality, and the versions that went out with it.
Then ask what the agency did on each piece, because many AI ads are made by several companies at once. Clear credits sound like this: on the Bank of Muscat campaign, BPG was the agency and we handled the complete AI production. If an agency can’t describe its part in a sentence like that, you should wonder whose work you are looking at.
How will the Arabic version be made?
Ask whether the Arabic is written or translated, and by whom. Ask who voices it, who checks the on-screen text and the right-to-left layouts, and whether the Arabic cut gets its own approval round. A good answer names people. The Bank of Muscat campaign, for example, was made in English and Arabic and delivered in vertical and horizontal formats. Every combination of language and format is its own thing to check.
If the film runs in Saudi Arabia, ask how the agency handles Saudi advertising guidelines alongside the brand’s own rules. On the Toyota National Day film we worked on with NaF+, every frame had to be delivered in line with Toyota, ALJ and Saudi advertising guidelines. You want a partner who treats rules like those as part of the brief from the first day.
Who owns what you deliver, and what went into it?
This is the question people skip because it sounds like legal homework. Ask anyway. Who owns the final files, and who owns the project files? Which tools generated the shots, and do their terms allow commercial use in your markets? Were any real people’s faces or voices used, and is there written consent? Were reference images licensed, or used only as direction inside the team? Ask about music and voiceover rights while you are there.
Get the answers written into the contract, and have your own lawyer read it. I am not a lawyer, and neither is the agency’s account manager.
What is finished by hand, and what counts as a revision?
Generation is where the work starts. Ask which steps people do after it: compositing, edit, grade, sound, typography, and the check that the product and label are right. An agency that describes its process as “we generate it and send it” will send you exactly that.
Then ask how many rounds of changes are included and what counts as one. Adjusting a grade late is cheap. Changing the idea after the look is built is expensive everywhere, with or without AI. Better to know where that line sits before the first round.
The short version, to take into the meeting:
- The director’s name and what they have directed
- Finished ads that ran, with clear credits
- Who writes, voices and approves the Arabic version
- Ownership, tool terms and consent, written into the contract
- What is finished by hand, and what a revision round includes
A serious agency will answer all five in one call. That includes mine.