UAE AI NEWS
Stories
Every UAE AI event, once. Each story gathers every outlet that covered it, summarised in plain words with the original links underneath.
Dubai AI Festival opens on 26 October, focused on putting AI to work
Dubai AI Festival runs on 26 and 27 October 2026 at Dubai World Trade Centre, six months after its original April dates. In its 20 October announcement, DIFC said the third edition expects more than 150 speakers, 500 investors and 200 exhibitors. The programme focuses on moving AI from experiments into everyday work. Coverage so far is the organiser’s release and event guides; independent reporting should follow once it opens.
Lovable and Nebius join Dubai’s business AI training push
Announced 19 October, Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy’s partnerships cover AI leadership, agentic AI training, workshops, and support for founders. The wider program targets 14,000 member companies. Lovable will also provide championship participants with platform credits funded by Dubai Chambers.
Dubai’s Popcorn AI Studio raises $1 million for Arabic AI filmmaking tools
Popcorn AI Studio, a Dubai startup building AI tools for film and video production, announced a $1 million pre-seed round on 18 October 2026, led by Emirati investor Mohammed Bin Bouta Alharsoosi. Its platform puts scripting, scene generation, voice, lip-sync and editing in one workflow, with a focus on Arabic and its dialects. The details come from the company’s announcement; no product results have been published.
WEF and Bain estimate AI could add over $1 trillion in MENA value by 2030
A World Economic Forum report with Bain & Company, published on 14 October 2026, estimates AI could unlock more than $1 trillion in economic and sustainability value across MENA by 2030. That’s a modelled estimate, not a forecast of what will happen. The report says reaching it depends on using AI for more than small improvements, and on grids, power and water keeping up with data centres.
Jais 3 brings open Arabic AI models with speech and agent features
MBZUAI’s Institute of Foundation Models and Inception42 released Jais 3 on 15 October 2026. It’s a family of six open Arabic language models, from 900 million to 375 billion parameters, plus Jais Speech, which turns spoken Arabic and its dialects into text. The performance claims come from the developers’ own evaluations, so independent tests will show how well they hold up.
Sharjah launches Najm, an AI agent that matches investors with sites
Invest in Sharjah launched Najm at the ninth Sharjah Investment Forum on 14 October 2026. It’s an AI agent that turns an investor’s project requirements and budget into matching commercial and industrial sites. Khaleej Times reported that the first phase draws on listings from Bayut and Property Finder and on public property data from Sharjah’s planning department.
Sharjah sets rules for AI in private schools, including disclosure in assignments
The Sharjah Private Education Authority (SPEA) launched an ethical framework for AI in schools on 14 October 2026. It requires students to disclose AI use where appropriate, makes schools set rules for AI in assignments and assessments, and asks for AI-generated information to be checked against its sources. It applies to schools and other education institutions across Sharjah.
Dubai launches GenDubAI to help parents guide their children’s AI use
The Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence launched GenDubAI on 14 October 2026. It’s a free platform that helps parents understand and guide how their children use AI. Built with the Community Development Authority and Dubai Future Foundation, it’s in Arabic and English and aimed at families with children aged 8 to 15. Khaleej Times reported that it walks parents through specific situations, such as a child turning to a chatbot for personal advice.
Abu Dhabi says AI frees 280,000 government work hours a year for complex cases
Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement (DGE) says AI now lets government staff move around 280,000 working hours a year from routine processing to cases that need human judgement, Khaleej Times reported on 13 October 2026. The figures were shared at a media briefing for HR Tech Abu Dhabi. The emirate says its focus is shifting from training staff in AI to measuring how their work changes.
Dubai Chambers is training 14,000 member companies to use agentic AI
Dubai Chambers launched agentic AI training tracks for more than 14,000 member companies on 1 September 2026, delivered through its new online Dubai Chambers Academy. Agentic AI means systems that carry out tasks, not only answer questions. In October, business leaders quoted in coverage on Zawya said the programme helps companies move from reading data to acting on it faster.
UAE still leads Microsoft’s AI adoption ranking, now at 73.3%
Several outlets reported in October 2026 that the UAE leads the world in AI adoption at 70.1%. That’s Microsoft’s figure for the first quarter of 2026. Microsoft’s newer report, published on 21 September, puts the UAE at 73.3% of its working-age population in the second quarter, still first in the world. Both numbers measure how many people have used a generative AI tool, not how deeply they use it.
Alef Education shows an AI grading tool for teachers at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi edtech company Alef Education presented AI Auto Grading, a tool that helps teachers grade students’ work, at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi on 6 and 7 October 2026. The company says the aim is to cut teachers’ admin time so they can spend more of it with students who need help. The coverage comes from Alef’s announcements and a Gulf News report; no results from classroom use were published.
Abu Dhabi launches AiNative, AI training for every government employee and the public
Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement launched AiNative on 7 October 2026 at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi. It’s an AI training programme built with OpenAI, Microsoft and MBZUAI for all government employees and the wider public. WAM reported a target of 20,000 employees by the end of 2026, while Khaleej Times reported about 23,000 by early 2027.
TII launches Falcon-Emirati and two Arabic models for speech and documents
Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) launched three AI models on 7 October 2026 at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi. Falcon-Emirati understands the Emirati dialect, Falcon-ASR turns speech in six languages into text, and Falcon-OCR-Arabic reads Arabic text from images and documents. TII’s performance claims come from its own tests.
Dubai launches a global AI agents championship with more than AED 2.5 million in prizes
On 7 October 2026, Sheikh Hamdan launched the Create AI Agents Championship, which replaces Dubai’s Create Apps Championship. Individuals, teams and companies anywhere can enter an AI agent idea, prototype or early product in one of four categories. Each category winner receives AED 550,000, and the overall winner AED 1 million.
AWS and UAE AI Office report finds 72% of UAE businesses now use AI
A report by AWS and the UAE Artificial Intelligence Office, released on 30 September 2026, found that 72% of UAE businesses have adopted AI, up from 53% a year earlier. Only 31% of those adopters use what the report calls advanced AI. Research firm Strand Partners carried out the study for AWS, which sells AI and cloud services.
DEWA moves 16 of its 21 services to agentic AI in under 90 days
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) said on 29 September 2026 that it had moved 16 of its 21 services, 76%, to agentic AI in less than 90 days. Its daily payment reconciliation now takes 12 minutes instead of about four hours, and supply activation takes two minutes instead of eight. The figures come from DEWA.
At Ai Everything Abu Dhabi, the capital showed how it is redesigning government work around AI
Ai Everything Abu Dhabi ran on 6 and 7 October 2026 at ADNEC Centre, hosted by the Department of Government Enablement (DGE). Officials used it to show progress towards an AI-native government by 2027, with more than 100 AI use cases live across public services, according to Gulf News. Khaleej Times reported the clearest message: AI should change how work is designed, while people stay responsible for decisions.
UAE university students can get Google AI Plus free for a year
The UAE Artificial Intelligence Office and Google announced on 3 September 2026 that university students in the UAE aged 18 and over can use Google AI Plus free for one year. The plan includes the Gemini app and Gemini Notebook, a tool for studying from your own materials. Students must sign up by 31 December 2026.
Dubai adopts one AI-assisted system to measure productivity across 32 government entities
Dubai’s Government Human Resources Department said on 23 August 2026 that a single Workforce Productivity Measurement System now covers 32 government entities. It uses data analytics and AI to compare each entity’s staff and budget with the services it delivers. Some coverage described it as monitoring employee efficiency, but the official description measures resources against outputs at the level of the entity.
UAE publishes a design guide for government services run by AI assistants
The UAE’s National Committee for the Agentic AI Project published a unified guide in August 2026 for designing government services around AI assistants. Its principles include not asking for information people have already given, keeping them informed at every step, and letting them object to or correct a result. It’s meant for federal entities moving their services to agentic AI.
ADX connects live market data to ChatGPT and Claude through MCP
The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) said on 13 August 2026 that investors and developers can now query its official live market data through AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude. It works through Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard way to connect AI tools to outside data. ADX says it’s the first exchange in MENA to do this, and access is through subscription plans on its website.
UAE creates a Federal Authority for AI and Data to run AI, data and digital government
On 14 June 2026, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid approved a new Federal Authority for Artificial Intelligence and Data. It brings the UAE’s AI Office, the UAE Data Office and the digital government work of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) into one body that reports to the Cabinet. Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, chairs it.