50% AI Government Target: Is Dubai Ready for Autonomous Service?

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
This is the Morning Drive, it's Mira Business FM. Dubai is accelerating its push into agentic AI. The UAE is aiming to shift 50% of government services to autonomous AI within two years.
Are businesses ready for AI that can think and can act and can make decisions and a whole lot more as well? And what do companies now have to do to fix, in effect, before AI exposes the cracks? A couple of things we hope to talk about this morning. Mounir Hijazi is the CEO for the GCC at TelePerformance, or TP as it's known. Mounir, good to have you in the studio.

**Mounir Hijazi** (0:40)
Thank you very much, Tim. It's very nice to be here, and it's a pleasure.

**Tim Elliott** (0:43)
It's good to have you with us. So I wanted to start with this, actually. Shifting half of all government services to autonomous AI in 24 months, two years, that's a pretty massive leap. Is the private sector inspired by a timeline like that, or are people, corporate leaders, are they panicking behind the scenes? What's going on?

**Mounir Hijazi** (1:04)
Okay, I think there's less panic. I think there's more inspiration to put it in short terms. But I think the reality is, what does that mean, right? If you want to move 50% of your services to AI, I think if we take that and unpack it, so is it 50% of the transactions that go today through government services, let's say, through government portals, is it that 50% of those transactions have to go through AI, or is it that AI is going to be a helper to try and process some of the government services, or is it just a chat bot that we're going to put at the front of all the government services that can help people essentially understand how to make most use of these government services? So what does that mean?
I think there was a recent announcement by the Bay Chambers, which actually puts that in practical terms, or kind of, if you will, defines a blueprint or a road map.

**Tim Elliott** (2:02)
This is their executive committee.

**Mounir Hijazi** (2:04)
That's their executive committee, exactly. I think what that does, it achieves two things.
First, it offers the businesses the opportunity to better understand what that means. So it's a forum where business leaders or business representatives can sit with the government and really understand what does that transition to 50% AI over or within the next couple of years.
What does that mean? What does that entail? And also provide their feedback and their perspective, because it's a broad target, it's a very creative target, it's an achievable target. I think that's what's interesting about it. And what's even more interesting is that Dubai has done many similar creative, innovative and achievable targets before, right? And the UAE in general, yeah? So it offers the businesses that opportunity to better understand and to provide their feedback. But it also offers them an avenue to flourish on the back of the momentum that this announcement has created, because now you can sit and talk to... So one of the things that the announcement talks about is incubators, encouraging companies to start up AI initiatives.
So what are those? What sort of AI initiatives, if I were a business entrepreneur, for example, and I wanted to start something up, what sort of AI initiative should I do?
I think the committee offers an avenue for businesses to discuss with the government what those initiatives are and to experiment with that.
And to put that in layman terms, okay? So you can do things around data, for example, you can do stuff around data cleansing, data annotation, you can do stuff around analytics, you can do stuff around governance, you can do stuff around AI ethics, you can look at particular use cases that are meaningful for the businesses and the citizens and the residents in Dubai, and actually do those use cases. Yeah, so for instance, take DWA., okay? DWA today, through the DWA app, they send you an alert on your mobile if they suspect there's leakage. And the way they find that out is because of the smart meters and because they look at your consumption, and essentially they see that there's a spike in your consumption that is unjustifiable compared to the households in your neighborhood, right? So they say there's something. Imagine working with businesses to take that to the next level, okay? Imagine there's a partnership with a maintenance company. Imagine that this alert goes to the maintenance company that you have a contract with, and that AI in the background arranges for that maintenance company to come at a specific time that is convenient for you to look at that leak and to fix it for you. So you're sitting there at home. Not only DWA alerts you that a leak has been detected, or there's suspicion of a certain leak, but also provides the service in partnership with the private sector to be able to do that, right? So it's the service through AI, but it's also the fulfillment of the service through AI. So that is, in my opinion, that is the opportunity. Now, businesses, to go back to your question, should not panic. It's a new opportunity that the government has provided. It will reinvigorate the economy as well. It provides a new dimension. And, you know, above all, Dubai has always been in the lead. It will keep Dubai in the lead.