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This Dubai firm is driving brand growth through AI
Simon Lomas and Liam Troughton of TIDAL, Dubai’s first brand-led performance agency, talk about all things brands and artificial intelligence
- PUBLISHED: Thu 19 Feb 2026, 5:12 PM
AI pops up in every conversation, tempting us to explore every idea through its lens. It’s revolutionising marketing, but human stories remain key to connection. Wknd. sat down with Simon Lomas and Liam Troughton, the founders of TIDAL, Dubai’s first brand-led performance agency, on how performance marketing agencies leverage AI to drive brand growth.
“AI was present even before coming in as ChatGPT and other versions, but now it’s at the forefront,” Simon says. “It’s not necessarily replacing storytelling but providing the infrastructure to prove that storytelling can drive commercial results. We can now trace brand narrative and how it can improve purchase decisions.”
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Headquartered in Dubai, TIDAL serve leading clients across the GCC, UK and US, including names like World Trade Centre, Black&Decker, among others. Simon feels AI brings the biggest shift in discovery. People aren’t just going to Google and searching keywords. The audience goes to TikTok for relevant videos, Reddit for advice from user-generated content and ChatGPT for recommendations. “This also means when we work with brands, they need to structure their narratives so that they’re discoverable on those channels. For us, the aim is to get our brand in front of people searching relevant topics.”
Liam explains. “We use a lot of AI-driven tools but we’re transparent about it with our client. We tell our clients we use AI across strategy, creatives and note-takers. We use tools like ChatGPT but we have built an in-house custom GPT. Custom GPTs are tailored versions of ChatGPT that you build and train on your own knowledge, processes, and expertise — essentially creating a specialist AI assistant that understands your business rather than giving generic responses.” TIDAL has built a suite of custom GPTs, “each trained on our methodology, our frameworks, and our approach to brand-led performance marketing”.
They cover everything from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) to creative strategy and data analysis. “Each one thinks the way a specialist thinks: it reframes briefs strategically, challenges assumptions, and connects every recommendation back to business outcomes rather than channel metrics,” adds Liam.
“Earlier, it used to take hours to finish a proposal, but now the same process has become faster, thanks to AI,” says Liam. It’s also the brands that expect agencies like Tidal to be fully AI-enabled. However, they do expect a human touch to the whole storyline and concept. “We are very transparent with our clients as they ask us about AI a lot and how they appear in searches. While many agencies offer GEO (like SEO), our USP is that we have created a package that provides one step further. Rather than optimising for a single search engine, Tidal builds platform-native strategies designed to capture demand wherever it exists, treating the entire digital landscape as an interconnected search ecosystem,” he explains.
The future
Is the future a blend of AI and human-led approach? “This is the biggest blind spot because we feel AI and human touch are opposite forces but they are not. AI handles backend work, data-led work, streamlining processes but as humans, we need to think how to use AI to tailor the needs of a client. We are definitely ahead of the curve in that aspect. Since AI is constantly moving, we have to constantly evolve ourselves while keeping it organically human,” he says.
Simon, however, says demand creation is vital. “Performance marketing without brand is like fishing from a pond that never refills itself — eventually you run out of fish.”
Strategies for effective brand building
Don’t chase conversions alone.
Build strategies that compound growth.
Think of long-term goals, not short-term wins.
Focus on demand creation and demand capture.
Build long-term relationships with clients.