Today's Edition
KHALED AL KHAWALDEH (ABU DHABI)
The UAE is set to become the first country to actively use AI to help write and review new and existing legislation. The landmark initiative will further solidify the country as a leading practitioner of emerging technology and could possibly serve as a case study for the rest of the world.
The new programme will fall under the umbrella of the newly formed ‘Regulatory Intelligence Office”, which was approved by the Cabinet on April 14. It seeks to create a singular body to integrate AI into every stage of lawmaking, using data to analyse the effectiveness of new and existing legislation.
“The new system will allow us to track the daily impact of laws on our people and economy using large-scale data, and it will regularly suggest updates to our legislation,” His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said in a statement.
“The system will be linked to leading global research centres to follow the best international policies and legislative practices, adapting them to suit the UAE’s unique circumstances,” His Highness added.
The move is a continuation of the UAE Government’s world-leading push to become a centre for both the implementation and development of AI. Having launched its AI Strategy 2031 and appointed the world’s first Minister of AI, the UAE Government is looking to lead by example by utilising emerging technologies across its functions.
As part of Dubai AI Week, the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DCAI) on Thursday released a report detailing 15 use cases across government that have already yielded substantial efficiency gains.
In one case, an existing programme managed to see a 300% increase in the recovery of lost items. Another recorded a 94.6% improvement in the accuracy of multilingual government digital texts and transcripts, while some other case witnessed an 85% boost in real estate valuation accuracy.
“We are building a comprehensive platform that unites the public and private sectors with academia to develop and deploy AI solutions, shape enabling policies and legislation, raise awareness, and spread knowledge,” said Saeed Al Falasi, Director of DCAI.
The report included key research that detailed how AI could be further implemented to improve urban environments, healthcare, operational and logistical costs as well as customer satisfaction. It forecast that by making these changes, the Dubai Government can radically reduce its overhead by 70%, improve results and help usher in an industry that could make up to14% of the UAE’s GDP by 2030.
In Abu Dhabi, a strategy has been set to create an AI-powered government, based on an announcement early this year. With an investment of Dh13 billion in innovations for 2025-2027, the emirate seeks to build the world’s first fully AI-native government across all digital services in two years.
The “Abu Dhabi Government Digital Strategy 2025-2027” aims to establish a robust digital infrastructure, creating a flexible and scalable foundation to achieve 100% adoption of sovereign cloud computing for government operations and digitising and automating 100% of processes, according to the announcement in January.
The transition to AI integration is not without its costs, with the UAE leading the world in AI investment both domestically and abroad. A recent report by Boston Consulting Group found that the country led the region in AI preparedness due to its substantive infrastructure both existing and under development, including 35 Data Centres already in operation.
Moreover, the report found that the UAE had succeeded in attracting almost 7000 AI specialists to help implement the transition although it warned that talent could be a constraint going forward.
