Google now shows AI Overviews and AI Mode answers in Arabic. Here is how a Dubai business can test English, Modern Standard Arabic and Gulf prompts, and fix its site so Arabic pages can be cited.
A buyer in Dubai can put the same question to Google or ChatGPT in English or in Arabic. In May 2025, Google announced AI Overviews for the Middle East and North Africa with Arabic support, and in October 2025 its AI Mode added Modern Standard Arabic. If your business only exists online in English, an Arabic question may leave the AI with little about you to cite. Arabic SEO for AI search is the work of making sure that does not happen, and it starts with finding out whether you have a gap at all.
Why Dubai brands vanish without Arabic SEO for AI search
An AI answer can only link to pages it can find and read. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. If your Arabic content is missing or half translated, there may be nothing in Arabic to link to.
Google's guidance on multilingual sites describes two traps worth checking on any bilingual website.
First, Google works out a page's language from its visible content. It does not use code-level signals such as the lang attribute, or the URL. A page tagged as Arabic but written mostly in English is, as far as Google is concerned, an English page.
Second, Google recommends a separate URL for each language version, rather than switching the language with cookies or browser settings. If your Arabic content only appears after a visitor clicks a toggle that changes a cookie, there is no distinct Arabic page to index.
Other causes, such as a brand name that is spelled differently in Arabic and Latin script, are covered in our guide to why Arabic brands are invisible in AI answers. This guide focuses on what a Dubai business can test and change this month.
Step 1: Test one question in English, Modern Standard Arabic and Gulf Arabic
Take your five most important buyer questions and write each one three ways: English, Modern Standard Arabic and the Gulf Arabic a Dubai customer might actually type. Run all three versions in ChatGPT and in Google's AI Mode, then compare whether your business is named and which websites each answer cites.
Why three versions? When Google added Arabic to AI Mode, it named Modern Standard Arabic. Many customers will not type formal Arabic, though, so the Gulf version shows whether you still appear when the question sounds like a real person in Dubai.
| Buyer intent | English | Modern Standard Arabic | Gulf Arabic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental clinic | Best dental clinic in Dubai Marina | ما هي أفضل عيادة أسنان في دبي مارينا؟ | وين أحسن عيادة أسنان في دبي مارينا؟ |
| Accountant | Accountant for a free zone company in Dubai | أبحث عن محاسب لشركة في منطقة حرة في دبي | أبي محاسب لشركتي في المنطقة الحرة بدبي |
| AC repair | Company to repair air conditioning in Dubai | أريد شركة لإصلاح المكيفات في دبي | أبغى شركة تصلح المكيف في دبي |
Run each version several times in a clean session and log the results, using the method in our Dubai AI visibility audit guide. Keep English, Arabic and Gulf results in separate columns so any gap is easy to see.
Do Arabic and English answers differ for your business? Do not assume either way. Your log answers that question, and it also settles the internal debate about whether Arabic is worth the effort when many of your customers speak English. If you are named in English and missing in both Arabic versions, you have a gap worth fixing. If the results match, your priority may lie elsewhere.
Step 2: Give every Arabic page its own URL
Publish Arabic content on its own URLs, in a separate Arabic section of your site, rather than swapping the language with a cookie or browser setting. Google recommends different URLs for each language version, and it advises against automatically redirecting visitors from one language version of a site to another.
That second point matters on bilingual UAE sites. If your site sends visitors with Arabic browser settings straight to Arabic pages, turn the redirect off and give people a clear link to switch languages instead. Visitors keep control, and each version stays reachable.
Then connect each English page with its Arabic twin. Google recommends hreflang annotations and sitemaps to help Search link people to the right language version of a page.
Should you publish Arabic pages if you already have a good English site? If Step 1 showed you missing in Arabic, yes. An English page cannot stand in for an Arabic page when Google decides language from the visible text.
Step 3: Write Arabic pages that stand on their own
Write the whole page in Arabic, not just the menu, buttons and footer. Google notes that translating only the boilerplate while leaving the main content in one language can create a bad experience for searchers. Because Google also judges language from the visible text, a half-translated page gives an Arabic question little to work with.
Can you just translate your English pages? Translation is a fine starting point, but have a native Arabic writer review every page before it goes live. Machine output that reads awkwardly is a poor answer to a customer who asked in their own language.
Put the facts buyers ask about into the Arabic text itself: the services you offer, the areas of Dubai you serve, prices in AED and your trade name. Use the trade name as it appears on your licence record. Our guide to fixing wrong information ChatGPT holds about your UAE company shows how to check that record.
Modern Standard Arabic or Gulf dialect? Google named Modern Standard Arabic when it brought Arabic to AI Mode, which makes it a sensible default for page copy. Let your Step 1 results decide where Gulf wording belongs, for example in FAQ questions written the way customers actually ask them.
Step 4: Check your Arabic pages can appear in AI answers
Confirm each Arabic page is indexed in Google and allowed to show a snippet, because Google says that is what a page needs to be a supporting link in AI Overviews and AI Mode. For ChatGPT search, check that your robots.txt does not block OAI-SearchBot. Google does not require any special AI file or new markup.
Look for anything on your Arabic templates that limits snippets. Google lists nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex as controls that restrict what Search shows from a page. A setting copied from a staging site onto the Arabic section can quietly remove those pages from AI answers.
One guide aimed at MENA brands suggests an llms.txt file that links to your Arabic pages. For Google's AI features, that step is optional at best: Google's documentation says you don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Put that effort into the Arabic pages themselves.
On the ChatGPT side, OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. That rule covers your whole site, Arabic pages included.
Where GEOscanAI fits, and where it does not
GEOscanAI's free audit checks ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity for the keywords you enter and shows whether your brand appears. It does not have a separate Arabic mode today. Use it for your English baseline, run the Arabic and Gulf prompts by hand with the method above, and compare the two.
That split is deliberate. An automated check that quietly treated Arabic as an afterthought would tell you less than a careful manual log in the languages your customers use. Start with the free AI visibility audit for English, then put your Arabic results beside it and decide which pages to build first.