UAE organisations lead world on AI agent adoption, study finds
97% embedding AI agents into workflows as agentic AI becomes core to operations
#UAE #AgenticAI – Organisations in the UAE are beating global peers across organisational resilience, digital maturity and AI integration, according to KPMG’s UAE Tech Report 2026. According to the new report, the UAE records the highest resilience levels globally, with 90 percent of organisations placing themselves in the top two resilience tiers. Most strikingly, 97 percent of UAE respondents report embedding AI agents into workflows, products, services and value streams, well beyond the global figure of 87 percent. Agentic AI seems to have moved from pilots to core operational reality across the Emirates. The report is based on a global survey of 2,500 technology leaders, including 70 participants from the United Arab Emirates.
SO WHAT? – The KPMG data captures something important about the UAE’s technology model: it is not just spending heavily on AI, it seems to be embedding it deeply and deliberately. The emerging picture is one of an economy where AI adoption is being actively shaped by national strategy rather, and where that top-down coordination is producing measurable results. In a country that is planning to embed AI across 50 percent of operations and services over the next two years, it is perhaps no surprise that 97 percent of UAE enterprises are integrating AI agents into there workflows.
KEY POINTS:
KPMG has published its annual UAE Tech Report, drawing on a global survey of 2,500 technology leaders including 70 respondents from the United Arab Emirates.
97% of UAE organisations report embedding AI agents into workflows, products, services and value streams, compared with 87% globally. This makes the UAE the leading region for agentic AI integration in KPMG’s global survey of 2,500 technology leaders.
Meanwhile, 90% of UAE organisations place themselves in the top two resilience tiers, the highest level recorded across all surveyed regions. The result reflects strong confidence in their ability to absorb regulatory change, market volatility and technology disruption.
69% of UAE organisations identify as fast followers, with 23% describing themselves as innovators or early adopters. The ‘fast-follower’ indciates a deliberate strategy to deploy proven technologies at scale rather than experiment at the frontier.
In addition, 60% of UAE organisations expect AI to be deployed at scale and delivering ROI within twelve months, broadly aligned with global expectations. While this trails Saudi Arabia’s 76% figure, the UAE leads decisively on depth of AI integration across business functions.
50% of UAE organisations invest between $50 million and $99.9 million annually in digital technologies, with no respondents reporting zero or negative value realisation from those investments, reinforcing technology’s status as a reliable performance driver rather than a speculative spend.
66% report optimised cybersecurity maturity, well above global benchmarks, alongside strong performance in cloud infrastructure and enterprise data management — providing the foundations for accelerated AI deployment when conditions are right.
96% agree that managing AI agents will become a critical workforce skill within five years, with the UAE also reporting the highest planned increases in digital and AI-enabled workforce capacity of any region surveyed.
AI transparency is the UAE’s top future AI risk concern, cited by 34% of respondents (the highest level globally), alongside intellectual property exposure through open-source use, cited by 32%. Both figures point to a strong emphasis on explainability, control and trust as AI embeds more deeply into operations.
40% of UAE organisations identify system and process integration as their top collaboration barrier, significantly above the global average of 28%, reflecting the operational complexity of managing heterogeneous technology environments across multiple jurisdictions and vendor ecosystems.
No doubt, the UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 and the UAE government’s leadership in AI help actively align public and private sector technology agendas and helping explain the confidence, discipline and measured pacing reported by the KPMG report.
ZOOM OUT – Also published this week, the Saudi Arabia Tech Report 2026, finds that 76% of Saudi organisations expect AI to deliver measurable ROI at enterprise scale within twelve months. It’s the highest confidence level of any region surveyed and compares to 60% for the UAE. Saudi organisations are also investing at a higher scale, with 39% committing between $100 million and $249.9 million annually to digital technologies,. Both Saudi and UAE markets share a fast-follower posture and near-universal long-term technology strategies. Read our story on the Saudi Arabia Tech Report here.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: KPMG
