The founders surrounded by some of their Lebanese and Emirati teams, during a dinner in Lebanon in December 2025. Photo provided by Swavy.
Finding the right influencer among thousands of social media personalities can quickly become a challenge for brands. That is the niche targeted by Swavy, a startup that says it is taking an unconventional approach by using artificial intelligence to connect advertisers with content creators.Registered in Dubai and founded in 2024 by Lebanese entrepreneurs Tarek Abboud and Jacques Saab, Swavy operates like a marketing agency, except that more than half of its 60 employees are software developers."We don't use AI as just a feature; we've built our own AI agents to do the work," said Abboud, 30.Presented in June by the Emirati daily Khaleej Times as one of the region's first "AI-native" companies in the influencer marketing sector, Swavy counts brands including Birkenstock, Saudia, Kérastase and Vileda among...
Finding the right influencer among thousands of social media personalities can quickly become a challenge for brands. That is the niche targeted by Swavy, a startup that says it is taking an unconventional approach by using artificial intelligence to connect advertisers with content creators.Registered in Dubai and founded in 2024 by Lebanese entrepreneurs Tarek Abboud and Jacques Saab, Swavy operates like a marketing agency, except that more than half of its 60 employees are software developers."We don't use AI as just a feature; we've built our own AI agents to do the work," said Abboud, 30.Presented in June by the Emirati daily Khaleej Times as one of the region's first "AI-native" companies in the influencer marketing sector, Swavy counts brands including Birkenstock, Saudia, Kérastase and Vileda...
Lebanese soldier wounded by Israeli drone attack in Mansouri