UAE announces plan to have autonomous AI agents run 50% of government within two years

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced that the UAE will deploy 'agentic AI' systems (AI that analyzes information and takes actions on its own) across half of all federal government sectors, services, and processes within two years. The country claims this would make it the first government globally to operate autonomous AI at this scale.

Unlike traditional software that follows preset rules, these AI agents will make independent decisions and handle tasks without constant human approval. The government plans to train every federal employee to work alongside these systems, positioning AI as an 'executive partner' to speed up decisions and boost service delivery.

For business professionals and citizens, this means government services could become faster, but with significant risks: autonomous AI systems tend to amplify biases from their training data, make errors without oversight, and face little accountability in a country without democratic checks or strong press freedom — issues that concern experts like those at Anthropic (maker of Claude AI).