The UAE’s governance and investment in artificial intelligence have created fertile conditions for businesses to get more out of the technology, according to a new report from the enterprise software company ServiceNow. Its Enterprise AI Maturity Index found that the country remains one of the world’s most ambitious AI markets, said Saif Mashat, vice president for the Middle East and Africa at ServiceNow, crediting the government’s long-term strategy and regulatory leadership for giving organisations a head start.
The report showed the UAE improving its AI maturity score by 13 points, but Mashat cautioned that investment alone is not enough. The ones pulling ahead are moving from AI pilots to AI orchestration, connecting legacy systems, data, governance and AI agents in one control tower, he said. Many organisations, the analysis noted, are still trying to layer AI onto fragmented technology, disconnected data and siloed workflows.
So-called agentic AI, tools that can act on repetitive tasks with limited human input, remains a work in progress. While 57 per cent of UAE organisations have implemented agentic AI, only 7 per cent have used it to build autonomous workflows, the report found. The challenge for enterprises now is to bring that same discipline and consistency into their own organisations, Mashat said, arguing that the government has already created many of the conditions for AI leadership.
Optimism about spending remains high. UAE organisations expect AI to account for almost one fifth of total information technology budgets by 2027, according to the survey. For more than a decade the country has pushed to become an AI leader as it diversifies its economy away from hydrocarbons, drawing start-ups, partnerships and investment from industry names including Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI, and teaming up with the United States on an Abu Dhabi AI campus that will include five gigawatts of data-centre capacity.
The index, compiled by ThoughtLab, surveyed about 4,500 executives and 2,000 employees across 19 countries. Across those markets, a recurring theme emerged of organisations only beginning to grasp how AI could reshape daily operations: 59 per cent said they could use agentic AI, but just 9 per cent had made significant progress building autonomous, multi-step workflows.
