The United Arab Emirates is moving fast to make artificial intelligence the backbone of how the public sector serves people. In late April 2026, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced that half of all federal government services will be delivered using AI agents within two years.
If the timeline holds, the UAE will become the first country in the world to run public services on Agentic AI at a national scale. Abu Dhabi has already set its own goal to become a fully AI-enabled government by 2027.
What Agentic AI means for residents and businesses
Agentic AI is a step beyond chatbots and generative tools. Instead of answering a question, an AI agent can take action on a user’s behalf — checking eligibility, pulling documents from different departments, completing forms, and following up until the task is closed. For residents, that points to faster renewals, fewer trips to service centres, and less paperwork. For businesses, it could shorten the time it takes to set up a company, register IP, file taxes, or move goods through customs.
Why the UAE is pushing so hard on AI
The country has been laying the groundwork for years. The UAE was the first government to appoint a Minister of State for AI back in 2017, and it has since trained civil servants, opened an AI-focused university, and invested heavily in compute capacity. The new push is also tied to wider infrastructure work, including the Stargate UAE compute project and the Abu Dhabi AI campus, which together aim to give local builders access to large-scale model training power without leaving the country.
The honest risks
A two-year window is ambitious. Three areas will need close attention:
- Data quality and integration. Agentic AI only works well when underlying systems share clean, up-to-date data. Many governments anywhere in the world still struggle with siloed records.
- Accountability. When an AI agent makes a decision on a permit, fine, or benefit, it must be clear who is responsible if something goes wrong, and how a resident can appeal.
- Inclusion. Older residents, low-income households, and people who do not use smartphones still need a clear, human path to services. AI cannot become a barrier.
What it could mean for the private sector
For startups and SMEs in the UAE, this shift opens real opportunities. Government will need vendors for secure data pipelines, model evaluation, multilingual interfaces, voice tools, and fraud detection. Local AI companies that can prove safety, Arabic-language quality, and compliance with national data rules will have a clear edge over global vendors.
The bigger story, though, is signal. When a government commits to AI delivery on this timeline, banks, telcos, real estate firms, and healthcare providers tend to follow. Residents and customers will start to expect the same speed in the private sector.
What to watch next
Three things will tell us whether the plan is on track. First, which services launch on AI agents in the next 6 to 12 months — early wins are likely in visa renewals, business licensing, and traffic services. Second, how the government measures and publishes results, including error rates and user satisfaction. Third, how the framework handles the inevitable cases where the AI gets it wrong.
Image: Dubai skyline. Photo by Walid Ahmad on Pexels.
