Following the program’s first phase in June, the UAE has begun a strategic workstream to embed agentic AI across government operations.


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UAE Steps Up Agentic AI Push Across Federal Government








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[Image: Chetan Jha/MITSMR Middle East]


The UAE is accelerating its agentic AI push, with more than 100 federal officials attending a workshop focused on integrating autonomous AI systems into government operations.

Organized by the National Committee for the Agentic AI Project, the strategic government workstream is part of a national program that aims to convert 50% of government operations, services, and tasks into agentic AI-driven models within two years. 

The effort is being pursued under the UAE Government 4.0 framework, with a focus on using AI not simply to automate individual tasks, but to reshape how government work is designed and delivered.

The track covers seven areas: strategy and projects; foresight and strategic intelligence; policies; structures and governance; government performance; global competitiveness; and innovation in government work. Together, the pillars suggest that the program is being positioned as an operating-model change, rather than a technology deployment exercise.

The workshop also introduced frameworks for classifying government tasks and setting implementation priorities, while encouraging federal entities to coordinate their AI efforts and reduce duplication across government. Its guiding principle is “human leads, AI enables,” placing human decision-making at the center while giving AI a larger role in execution and coordination.

Huda Al Hashimi, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs, said the session marked the operational start of deploying AI models to strengthen the UAE’s position in future-ready governance.

The move follows the first phase of the program, launched in June, when more than 300 officials from 50 federal entities gathered for a specialized workshop in Dubai. That phase focused on translating the government’s broader AI mandate into specific implementation tracks, with entities asked to identify services and operational processes that could be redesigned around agentic AI and launched within 90 days.

The distinction matters. Conventional government AI deployments have largely focused on individual use cases such as prediction, analysis, or task automation. Agentic systems are intended to operate across multiple steps of a process, coordinating actions and making decisions with limited human intervention.

For the UAE, the challenge now is less about demonstrating what agents can do than determining where they should be allowed to act, how their performance will be governed, and how responsibilities will be divided between people and machines. The two-year target makes that an organizational design challenge as much as a technology one.

MIT Sloan Management Review Middle East invites you to the second edition of AI Research Forum — “Agentic AI: From Mandate to Momentum” taking place on 22 October 2026 in Dubai.To partner, speak, or attend AIRF, click here.