Adopting the Future: How Generative AI, Agentic AI, and Blockchain Are Redefining Success for Dubai's Emerging Start-Ups

This study investigates the uptake of emerging technologies—generative AI, agentic AI, and blockchain—by start-up companies in Dubai, a rapidly emerging innovation hub in the MENA region. Based on the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) and the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework, the study investigates how technology, organizational, and environmental determinants influence technology adoption by start-ups. Specifically, it takes into account trialability, observability, relative advantage, and compatibility (technological context); stakeholder dynamics, innovation capability, and organizational resources (organizational context); and competition intensity and regulatory environment (environmental context). Citing recent criticisms of IDT, the study removes complexity as a determinant considering the growing user-centric design of technologies like GenAI. Using a mixed-methods design, the study collects data through interviews and surveys from start-up founders and technology leads. The outcomes should unveil the way start-ups view and imbed disruptive technologies and equip policymakers, entrepreneurs, and strategists for innovations with lessons to inform real-world applications. Placing the study in Dubai's vibrant setting, this study provides theoretical and empirical contributions to technology diffusion in the emerging economies, where the flexibility of regulation, preparedness of infrastructure, and competitive stress all come together to create innovation trajectories.