UAE to evaluate government departments on AI use, minister says

Artificial intelligence should not be overregulated at expense of innovation, Omar Al Olama tells Dubai AI Retreat

AI Week. HE Omar Al Olama opens the AI Retreat at AI Week in the Museum of The Future, Dubai. Antonie Robertson/The National

The UAE will begin evaluating all government departments on the effectiveness of their artificial intelligence adoption, as part of a wider push to ensure meaningful implementation across the public sector, Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, said at Dubai’s AI Retreat.

“Every single government department is going to be assessed, rated and classified based on how well they use artificial intelligence and how beneficial it is for their entity,” Mr Al Olama told the gathering at the Museum of the Future, which marked the start of the inaugural Dubai AI Week.

The move is part of a broader strategy to ensure AI integration across the UAE leads to tangible public benefit rather than superficial adoption. Departments will not be rewarded for merely using AI but for how effectively it enhances operations and improves residents' quality of life.

“We don’t want to leverage artificial intelligence just for the sake of AI,” Mr Al Olama said. “We want to ensure that the application actually improves the quality of life of citizens in the UAE and in Dubai specifically.”

Omar Al Olama has said the UAE will rate departments on how effectively AI improves operations and life. Antonie Robertson / The National

The retreat – now in its second edition – brings together more than 1,000 AI experts, policymakers and executives from companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google and IBM, as well as delegations from more than 100 countries.

The aim is to foster international collaboration and accelerate the UAE’s vision of becoming a global AI leader.

“This is the continuation of a journey that started last year – a journey where we, in Dubai and the UAE, decided that the time is now for us to plant a flag in the path towards leadership in AI for the region,” Mr Al Olama said.

He outlined the UAE’s three-part framework for approaching AI: innovation, regulation and a third pillar he described as “acceleration”.

“We believe that we should not compromise regulation for the sake of innovation, but we must also focus on accelerating the positive use of this technology in the best way possible,” he said.

To demonstrate the risks of overregulation, he referred to the 19th-century UK Locomotive Act, which required a person to walk ahead of vehicles waving a red flag – effectively limiting cars to walking speed.

“It was not until that regulation was removed that the UK was able to proliferate the use of cars on its roads,” he said. “In Dubai, our belief is the same. We do not want to overregulate for the sake of regulation.”

Referring to the use of smart gates at Dubai airports as a model, he said: “That is an exceptional use of artificial intelligence that improves quality of life … AI that is frictionless. AI that you don’t feel. And AI that improves your quality of life overall.”

Since last year’s retreat, the UAE has taken several concrete steps to build its AI infrastructure.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, at the launch of the One Million Prompters initiative.

Targets set by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, included appointing a chief AI officer in every government department, launching AI-focused incubators and training a million people in prompt engineering.

“We’ve attracted over Dh20 billion [$5.44 billion] into this domain,” Mr Al Olama said, referring to major investments such as KKR’s deal with Gulf Data Hub.

To bring transparency to the growing AI ecosystem, he said 325 companies had now been classified through the UAE’s AI classification system.

“We need to clarify what is real AI and what is not,” he said. “Whether the domain of expertise actually fits what you want as an entity or an individual, and whether you can actually work with that company.”

He also called for deeper collaboration between the government and private sector, saying Dubai does not seek to build everything in-house but aims to be the most business-friendly city for AI innovation.

“We know that we can work with the best and the brightest – some of you in this room – to ensure that Dubai is the place where artificial intelligence is deployed and where the benefits are reaped," he added.

“Dubai understands business. And in our dream, we are a city that is a business hub, but that’s also an accelerator of artificial intelligence.”

The UAE is positioning itself as a global leader in AI as part of its broader strategy to diversify beyond oil. In 2019, the country launched the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first university dedicated exclusively to AI.

More recently, the UAE has also developed several large language models – a key building block in the deployment of advanced AI systems across sectors.