The United Arab Emirates is rolling out what may be the world’s most ambitious government AI overhaul. Within two years, the country wants 50 percent of all government sectors, services, and processes to run on “agentic AI,” systems that analyze, decide, and increasingly act on their own. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the plan on X.
The UAE says this would make it the first government in the world to lean on autonomous AI systems at this scale. The idea is to turn AI into an “executive partner” that improves services, speeds up decisions, and boosts efficiency. Every federal employee will be trained to work with AI. The goal, according to Sheikh Mohammed, is a government that is ” faster, more responsive, and more impactful.”
AI systems that make decisions on their own are still prone to errors, can amplify biases baked into their training data, and face little oversight in a country without democratic checks and with limited press freedom. The risks of government AI use are showing up elsewhere too, including in the US, where Claude maker Anthropic has raised concerns about potential mass surveillance.
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