#UAE #government - The UAE has launched an Annual Government Challenge that will task federal employees with designing agentic AI solutions, offering AED 9 million ($2.5m) in prizes for nine winning projects. Ruler of Dubai and UAE Prime Minister HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the competition in commemoration of UAE Innovation Month. The Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation, part of the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, will run it. The aims of the challenge are to redesign public services, enable better decisions and elevate government performance.
SO WHAT? - In April of this year the UAE government announced a new strategy and framework to deploy agentic AI across 50 percent of government sectors, services and operations within two year. The new Annual Government Challenge asks the employees who actually handle services every day to submit their best agentic AI ideas, and nine of them will share the AED 9 million. Entries will be judged on the measurable impact and on whether they can scale.
KEY POINTS:
Dubai ruler and UAE Prime Minister HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum today announced a new Annual Government Challenge for employees of federal ministries and public entities to design their own agentic AI solutions. Competitors will design solutions to align with national priorities and turn the best ideas into practical projects that can scale.
Each Annual Government Challenge will be dedicated to one national priority. The first covers agentic AI: redesigning services and operations, improving decision making and raising government performance. The Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation will oversee the challenge.
The first edition ends with the honouring of nine winning projects across three categories. Total prizes come to AED 9 million ($2.5m). All federal ministries, entities and their employees can take part.
Government Services covers solutions that serve customers directly. Entries should redesign the service journey, simplify procedures, cut time and steps, and deliver faster and more proactive services.
Internal Operations covers how government entities work inside. It targets internal procedures, coordination, monitoring, analysis and decision making, aiming to cut repetitive work, speed up delivery and raise productivity and resource efficiency.
Unconventional Ideas invites bold models that rethink the role of government and how it works. Entries should create new opportunities, speed up national targets and strengthen the UAE’s competitiveness.
The competition’s judges will weigh the importance of entries and their fit with strategic priorities, the quality and feasibility of the solution, and how suitable the agentic AI application is. Measurable impact, scalability, governance and sustainability of the solutions submitted also count.
Teams and entities register at challenge.gov.ae. The challenge is part of the UAE Government’s target to move 50 per cent of government sectors, services and operations to agentic AI models within two years.
Chaired by H.E. Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs, the National Committee for the Agentic AI Project plans to deploy agentic AI assistants that work alongside employees.
ZOOM OUT - In April 2026, the UAE Cabinet announced a framework to move 50% of government sectors, services and operations to agentic AI within two years. Systems would monitor changes, manage operations and carry out decisions in real time without human intervention. A taskforce chaired by Minister of Cabinet Affairs Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi leads delivery. Ministers and heads of government entities will be assessed on how fast they adopt it. All federal employees will get continuous AI training. The plan follows 20 years of digital government, from eGovernment to UAE Pass and Government Services 2.0.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: UAE Government
Read more about the UAE government’s pioneering implementation of AI:
UAE sends 50-strong team on US AI trip (Middle East AI News)
UAE creates federal government AI ecosystem (Middle East AI News)
UAE launches strategic track for federal Agentic AI project (Middle East AI News)
UAE government bodies target 75% AI agent deployment (Middle East AI News)
UAE creates federal AI & data authority (Middle East AI News)