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The Emirates Intelligencer

An Independent Daily Bulletin on Artificial-Intelligence Investment, Adoption and Deployment. Published by otonomi.co

Vol. I., No. 85 Saturday, September 26, 2026 From the Archive
Government Agentic AI
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UAE Finance Ministry Moves Agentic AI Into Budget, Payroll and Procurement

The third phase of the country’s Zero Government Bureaucracy Programme takes agentic AI from concept to the back-office processes that determine how federal money is allocated, spent and audited.

By The Otonomi Investment Desk

The UAE Ministry of Finance convened its Customer Council in Dubai on Friday to work through the practical deployment of agentic artificial intelligence across six areas of federal financial operations, under the third phase of the country’s Zero Government Bureaucracy Programme. Fatima Yousif Al Naqbi, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for the Support Services Sector, joined strategic partners and customers at the session.

The areas under review were budget preparation; transfers of financial allocations between chapters and programmes; requests to impose or modify fees for federal agency services; employee payroll procedures; government procurement; and the cycle for preparing final accounts. Participants examined the tasks agentic AI could support, the data and inputs required, the stages of human review and verification, and the safeguards needed before any move from testing to adoption.

Al Naqbi said the phase would move beyond reducing procedures and documentation towards proactively redesigning services, guided by the directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to harness agentic AI. Launched in 2023 and tied to the We the UAE 2031 vision, the programme seeks to eliminate unnecessary procedures and to promote the secure adoption of agentic AI across government. Its first two phases underpinned the reductions in procedures the ministry recorded in 2024 and 2025.

Economy Middle East Read original source

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AI Security

Dubai Security Centre to Deploy First Arab Government Deepfake Detection Model

The Dubai Electronic Security Centre will launch an artificial intelligence model that detects deepfake videos, in what it describes as the first model of its kind developed by a government entity in the Arab region. The system, named SARAAB, scans a clip and uses a heat map to highlight the specific facial features that have been manipulated, analysing the full duration of a video to isolate the sections that were altered.

Hassan Majid Alkhazraji, a senior artificial intelligence executive at the centre, said the model is due to launch by the end of the year and carries a 91 per cent accuracy rate, among the highest worldwide. SARAAB will be published on Hugging Face, the open-source platform whose users can view and modify source code. The centre announced the tool at Gisec Global, the Dubai cybersecurity exhibition, where it also introduced the Dubai Cyber Skills Framework and a certification programme for information security regulation auditors.

Khaleej Times Read original source
AI Skills Diplomacy

UAE and Lebanon Launch Drive to Train One Million People in Generative AI

The United Arab Emirates and Lebanon have launched the One Million Lebanese AI Experts initiative, a joint programme to equip one million people in Lebanon with practical skills in generative artificial intelligence and prompt engineering. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced the initiative on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The programme runs under the UAE’s Government Experience Exchange Programme in cooperation with the Lebanese government. It is designed to give participants of different ages, backgrounds and professions the knowledge to use AI tools in their work and daily lives, with particular emphasis on formulating instructions that produce accurate results. Reem bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, Minister of State for International Cooperation, and other UAE officials attended the meeting.

Economy Middle East Read original source
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Further Dispatches
Startup Capital

Abu Dhabi AI Startup Synapse Analytics Raises $13 Million for Bank Decisioning

Synapse Analytics, an Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence company in the Hub71 ecosystem, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by the technology investor Partech, with participation from Algebra Ventures and Silicon Badia. The round brings total funding since inception to $17 million.

The company builds agentic decisioning infrastructure for regulated financial institutions, allowing banks, fintechs and telecommunications companies to run proprietary models inside their own perimeter, whether on-premise, in a private, public or sovereign cloud, or in an air-gapped environment. It will use the proceeds to expand its team, accelerate product development and extend its reach across the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Hub71 Read original source
Enterprise Adoption

Microsoft Says 70 Per Cent AI Usage Leaves UAE Firms Facing Returns Test

More than 70 per cent of the UAE’s working-age population is using artificial intelligence, the highest rate globally, according to Microsoft’s latest AI Diffusion Report, which puts adoption at 70.1 per cent. Amr Kamel, Managing Director of Microsoft UAE, said the country was already beyond the question of whether people would adopt AI, and that the harder question was what businesses do with that capability.

Kamel said the larger gains would come from rethinking complete processes rather than speeding up individual tasks, and warned that companies risk losing value when learning stays confined to single teams or applications. He said the organisations that generate meaningful returns start with a business problem rather than an AI budget, and that government remains among the sectors furthest ahead in putting AI into wider use.

Gulf News Read original source
Global AI in Action
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