Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, has issued a rallying call to enterprising government workers to help to develop “bold new solutions” to drive UAE progress.
Sheikh Mohammed on Monday set out plans to champion the country's talent and harness their expertise under a new national campaign aimed at taking government services to “new levels”.
The Annual Government Challenge, announced to coincide with the start of UAE Innovation Month, will focus on advancing the use of agentic artificial intelligence in its first edition.
Sheikh Mohammed said the top nine government projects and teams would be honoured for making a “real impact” in improving services, with Dh9 million in prizes on offer across three categories.
Participants will be tasked with using AI agents to redesign services, enhance decision making and raise government performance.
It will be overseen by the Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs.
"As UAE Innovates begins, we launch today the Annual Government Challenge for UAE Government employees and teams," Sheikh Mohammed said.
"A new national initiative to inspire our government talent to create bold new solutions with real impact on our services, operations and projects.
"The first challenge: Agentic AI. We will honour the top 9 government projects and teams. We want unconventional ideas. Solutions that make a difference. Projects that take government work to new levels.”
Mohammad Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and chairman of the National Committee for the Agentic AI Project, said the Annual Government Challenge underlined the UAE's vision for a government that does not merely keep pace with the future abut anticipates and adapts to change.
“Government work in the UAE is more agile and better prepared to deal with change," Mr Al Gergawi said.
"In the next phase, we aim to deploy Agentic AI assistants to work alongside employees in driving development, efficiency and productivity.
"Through this challenge, we are counting on our ability to combine the expertise of our people with the capabilities of technology to design a faster, more efficient and more proactive government.
“Through the Annual Government Challenge, we want every government employee to be a partner in developing government, and every outstanding idea to become an opportunity to design a better service, a more efficient process or a new operating model."
AI action plan
The strategy is the latest step in the UAE's long-term push to promote safe and responsible use of AI within the government.
In May, the UAE unveiled plans to train 80,000 workers – from ministers to junior employees – in the use of AI agents in a bid to ensure half of government services are delivered by the emerging technology within two years.
Sheikh Mohammed said at the time it would be the largest AI training programme launched by the UAE government.
It focuses on raising AI capabilities in five categories, covering leadership, technical skills, specialist roles, the general workforce and additional support for trainers. A dedicated digital platform, powered by Agentic AI tools, will be developed to assist federal employees through personalised learning pathways tailored to their role and skill level.
The project aims to utilise AI agents – an autonomous model of AI capable of making decisions and achieving specific goals with limited supervision – to reshape government.
The AI agents will be used to redesign government policies, processes and procedures and will enable smart systems to perform tasks proactively to reduce operational costs and boost productivity and efficiency.
There will be a phased introduction of the scheme in ministries and federal departments, based on continuous performance and impact assessments. This will pave the way for a wider roll-out across the federal government.
