At the Global AI Show in Riyadh, Business Today Middle East spoke with Nadeem Bakhsh, CEO of webook.com, one of the region’s largest ticketing platforms and a super app for live experiences.
Bakhsh opened with one of the most persistent problems in the ticketing industry: scalping. When a million people compete for 50,000 tickets in a single second, the platform loses almost everyone. webook.com’s answer is an AI system called TruFan, launching this year, which analyses customer history, event attendance and community engagement to identify genuine fans and prioritise them in the queue. “We put real fans in real seats,” Bakhsh said.
On the broader question of how AI is transforming the live experience, Bakhsh is expansive. Real-time insights during matches, AI-powered glasses at events, seamless discovery and engagement across online and offline channels — he sees the entire experience economy being reshaped. “Sports will never be the same,” he said.
The company’s origins are characteristically entrepreneurial. What began as a football management tool built by his brother on Excel has grown, through user feedback and timing, into a platform with 18 million customers. The super app vision — one platform for all experiences, events and communities — was sketched on a napkin at a coffee shop a decade ago. “Ten years later, we’re at that stage,” Bakhsh said.
What keeps him up at night? AI. “If you’re not able to quickly grasp that and move quickly, it’ll be tough to continue.”
