2026-09-03
On 2 September 2026 the UAE Cabinet, chaired by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Qasr Al Watan in Abu Dhabi, approved the launch of the Cabinet AI Advisor: a system of 32 specialised AI advisors that analyse policies and draft legislation, assess their financial, economic, social and environmental impact, compare them with global best practice and put recommendations in front of ministers 24 hours a day. At the same meeting the Cabinet approved an artificial intelligence curriculum for all public and private schools in the UAE, following a pilot in public schools, and reviewed a programme to train 22,000 teachers and educators to use AI in teaching, assessment, curriculum analysis and lesson planning. The meeting also took stock of a year of digital government: more than 308 million digital transactions, 15.8 million app downloads across 1,633 digital services, 92% customer satisfaction with priority services and 471 digital transformation projects in 2025. The UAE Government Annual Meetings will take place on 8-10 November 2026 under the theme of readiness and resilience. The decisions are set out in the Government of Dubai Media Office statement of 2 September 2026, with additional detail reported by The National and Khaleej Times.
What the Cabinet approved on 2 September 2026
The meeting was the first of the new government season. In his opening remarks Sheikh Mohammed gave government teams three messages: “we do not wait for the perfect conditions to continue delivering”, the agentic AI transformation of government services is “a strategic, national and forward-looking project”, and the trust the UAE has built over decades “is the currency we rely on”. The decisions that matter most for residents and companies:
- Cabinet AI Advisor. Launch and rollout of a system of 32 specialised AI advisors that support the work of the Cabinet and the Ministerial Council for Artificial Intelligence and Development, plus a governed system for issuing Cabinet decisions with the support of agentic AI.
- AI curriculum for all schools. Implementation of an artificial intelligence curriculum across all public and private schools in the UAE, after a pilot programme and evaluation in public schools showed positive results, and a mechanism to share the curriculum with ministries of education in other countries.
- 22,000 teachers. A programme to develop the capabilities of 22,000 teachers and educators with AI tools for teaching, assessment, curriculum analysis, lesson planning and fostering innovation among students.
- Digital government results for 2025. More than 308 million digital transactions, 88.5 million visits to government websites, 15.8 million app downloads, 1,633 digital services, 92% satisfaction with priority services and 471 completed digital transformation projects.
- UAE Government Annual Meetings. Agenda approved for 8-10 November 2026, themed around readiness and resilience of the economy, supplies and logistics, resources and families, with a review of how government entities are using AI and the first awards of the “Years of the Emirates’ Award”.
- Other decisions. A resolution regulating autonomous vehicles (covered in our article on the federal rules for self-driving cars), the National Ecotourism Policy, the first national Early Childhood Week on 16-22 November 2026, the migration of federal financial and HR systems to the cloud, a National Framework for Financial Sustainability Standards in the federal government, and the ratification of agreements with Qatar on investment protection, Ecuador on comprehensive economic partnership, Pakistan on AI and the digital economy and Luxembourg on mutual legal assistance, together with the multilateral competent authority agreement on the automatic exchange of information.
Cabinet AI Advisor: 32 assistants working 24 hours a day
According to the official statement, the Cabinet AI Advisor is built on agentic AI and analyses every subject brought before the Cabinet, including government programmes, policies and legislation. Each of the 32 advisors covers a specialism. For each item they assess the financial, economic, social and environmental impact, link the proposal to global best practice and to the UAE’s national priorities, and present recommendations drawn from an approved set of inputs and sources. The National adds that the system connects new topics to relevant past Cabinet decisions, monitors decisions after they are taken and presents final recommendations for each subject. In Sheikh Mohammed’s words, the system “will work with our ministers, 24 hours a day, to follow up on decisions and their implementation”, and the aim is “a more efficient government, and faster and more accurate decisions”.
Two design principles are spelled out: the confidentiality of the matters presented to the Cabinet is protected, and the system meets the cybersecurity standards adopted in the UAE. Alongside the advisor, the Cabinet approved a system for issuing Cabinet decisions within a governed framework, supported by agentic AI, so that decision-making continues without interruption between meetings.
The advisor is the latest step in a sequence of decisions that has moved quickly in 2026:
| Date | Decision | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 18 May 2026 | Federal framework for the Agentic AI Project (“UAE Government 4.0”) | Training for 80,000 federal employees in five categories, a target of running 50% of government services and operations on agentic AI, and a first package of transformed services for citizens, residents, businesses and investors |
| 20 May 2026 | Agentic AI Retreat in Abu Dhabi | First four government AI agents unveiled: procurement, tax auditing, customer happiness and technical support |
| 14 June 2026 | Federal Authority for Artificial Intelligence and Data announced | One body for AI, data and digital government, combining the AI Office, the UAE Data Office and the digital government portfolio of the TDRA |
| 2 September 2026 | Cabinet AI Advisor and governed decision-issuing system | 32 AI advisors analyse policies and legislation for ministers around the clock; Cabinet decisions issued with agentic AI support |
For anyone who deals with UAE regulation, the practical reading is simple: the path from a policy idea to a Cabinet decision is getting shorter, and the same agentic tools are being deployed on the operational side, from procurement to tax audits. The 471 digital transformation projects completed in 2025 and the National Programme for Advanced Sciences and Technologies established in August 2026 belong to the same programme.
AI curriculum for all public and private schools
The Cabinet approved the implementation of an artificial intelligence curriculum across all public and private schools in the UAE. According to the statement, the curriculum equips students with the technical requirements of AI, instils an awareness of its ethical applications and builds an understanding of AI data, algorithms, applications and risks. A pilot programme and an evaluation of the curriculum had already produced positive results in public schools. The Cabinet also approved a mechanism to make the curriculum and its components available to ministries of education in other countries and to the international educational community.
The decision builds on two earlier steps. On 4 May 2025 Sheikh Mohammed announced that AI would become a subject in all government schools from kindergarten to Grade 12 from the 2025-2026 academic year, organised around seven areas: foundational concepts, data and algorithms, software use, ethical awareness, real-world applications, innovation and project design, and policies and community engagement. The Ministry of Education integrated the subject into the existing “Computing, Creative Design and Innovation” course without adding class hours. In February 2026 the Ministry approved the teaching plan for 2026-2027 for public and private schools that follow the national curriculum, renamed the subject “Artificial Intelligence and Technology” and standardised weekly timetables at 24 lessons in kindergarten, 32 in Grades 1 to 4 and 36 in Grades 5 to 12.
What is new on 2 September 2026 is the scope: the curriculum now applies to all public and private schools, not only to government schools and private schools on the national curriculum. The statement does not give a start date for private schools, the number of lessons or the way the curriculum will be integrated into British, IB, American, Indian and other foreign curricula, which are licensed by the emirate-level regulators: the KHDA in Dubai, ADEK in Abu Dhabi and the SPEA in Sharjah. Those details have not been published yet. The private school sector is large: Dubai alone is opening 26 new private education institutions in 2026-2027, and Sharjah started the school year with 135 licensed private schools and more than 204,000 pupils.
22,000 teachers: the training programme
The Cabinet reviewed the “programme of teachers’ and educators’ capabilities development using artificial intelligence tools”. Its objective, in Sheikh Mohammed’s words, is “to train 22,000 teachers and educators to utilise AI as a support in teaching, assessment, curriculum analysis, lessons planning, and fostering a spirit of innovation among students”. He added that “teachers will have to become lifelong learners, because if we teach our children today using the same methods of yesterday, we are depriving them of their future”. The statement does not say how the 22,000 places are split between public and private schools, nor the timetable or the providers of the training.
Digital government in numbers: 308 million transactions in 2025
| Indicator (2025) | Result |
|---|---|
| Digital transactions completed by federal entities | more than 308 million |
| Visits to government websites | 88.5 million |
| Downloads of government apps | 15.8 million |
| Digital services available | 1,633 |
| Customer satisfaction with priority services | 92% |
| Digital transformation projects delivered | 471 |
In the international rankings cited by the Cabinet, the UAE placed first worldwide in the telecommunications infrastructure index, the institutional framework for digital government index, the digital skills index and the AI adoption index, sat in the highest tier of the cybersecurity index, and ranked second for satisfaction with government services, sixth in the technology index and ninth in digital competitiveness. For a company, these numbers describe the channel through which it deals with the state: trade licences, visas, tax registration and filings, attestation of documents and most other government procedures run through digital services and UAE PASS, and the Dubai unified licence already cuts corporate bank account opening to about three days.
Annual Meetings on 8-10 November 2026 and the other decisions for business
The UAE Government Annual Meetings are the national platform where federal and local government review the year and set the next stage. The 2026 edition, on 8-10 November, is themed around readiness and resilience: the readiness of the economy, of supplies and logistics, of resources and of families. Government entities will report on their use of AI, and the winners of the first cycle of the “Years of the Emirates’ Award” will be announced.
Several other items on the 2 September agenda touch companies directly:
- Progress on the national campaign “The Emirates, Start-Up Capital of the World”: small and medium enterprises and startups account for more than 95% of all companies in the UAE and contribute over 63% of non-oil GDP. In 2025 the campaign delivered a national platform for entrepreneurs through the New Economy Academy, the UAE Tax Agent Programme to qualify 500 citizens and training for 10,000 citizens.
- The Emirates Skills platform, an AI-supported system that forecasts in-demand skills and matches education outcomes with the labour market; it served more than 8,300 users during its pilot phase.
- Cloud migration of the federal government’s financial and human resources systems and a National Framework for Financial Sustainability Standards that embeds environmental, social and governance criteria in federal financial procedures.
- International agreements: with Qatar on the promotion and protection of investment, with Ecuador on comprehensive economic partnership, with Pakistan on artificial intelligence and the digital economy, with Luxembourg on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, and the multilateral competent authority agreement on the automatic exchange of information. The Cabinet also cleared the negotiation and signing of 70 agreements and memoranda across economic partnership, investment, banking, customs, aviation, AI, cybersecurity, energy, space and tourism.
What this means for business in the UAE
The decisions of 2 September do not change a tax rate or a licence fee, but they change the environment in which companies operate. Three groups are affected:
- Every licensed company. Government decisions will be prepared with AI analysis around the clock, and the operational agents announced in May 2026 include tax auditing and procurement. Companies should expect more data-driven checks of their filings and faster regulatory cycles, and keep their accounting, VAT and corporate tax records in a state that survives an automated review.
- Education and technology companies. An AI curriculum in every public and private school and a training programme for 22,000 teachers create demand for content, platforms, teacher training and assessment tools. Education and training activities in the UAE require approval from the education regulator of the emirate in addition to the trade licence, so the choice of jurisdiction and activity matters from day one.
- Families relocating to the UAE. AI becomes part of the school programme regardless of whether a child goes to a public school or to a private school on a foreign curriculum. Parents choosing a school for 2026-2027 can ask how the school plans to implement the curriculum.
Checklist for a company that wants to work with the UAE public sector or the education market:
- Check that the licence activities cover the actual service: software development, e-learning, educational consultancy, training and content production are separate activities with separate approvals.
- Budget for regulator approvals: the KHDA, ADEK or the SPEA for education, and the relevant federal or local entity for government procurement registration.
- Prepare a corporate bank account and a compliance file before the first contract, since government and school clients pay to UAE accounts.
- Plan visas for teachers, trainers and engineers early: the school year has already started, and the teacher programme is measured in thousands of participants.
- Track the Annual Meetings on 8-10 November 2026: they are where next year’s priorities are set.
How Atlant Capital can help
Atlant Capital works with founders and companies that are setting up in the UAE, including education, technology and consulting businesses. We handle company setup on the mainland and in UAE free zones, with the choice of jurisdiction and licence activities that fit an edtech, training or IT business and the regulator approvals attached to them; corporate bank account opening, with the compliance file prepared in advance; and work visas and residence permits for the founders and the team. Bookkeeping, VAT and corporate tax filings are handled by licensed accounting firms from our partner network.
Conclusion
On 2 September 2026 the UAE Cabinet put AI on both sides of the government table: 32 AI advisors now prepare and follow up the decisions of ministers, and an AI curriculum reaches every public and private school, with 22,000 teachers to be trained. The digital results for 2025, more than 308 million transactions and 92% satisfaction across 1,633 services, show the scale of the channel through which companies already deal with the state. The next checkpoint is the Annual Meetings on 8-10 November 2026. For companies, the practical conclusion is to keep licences, records and filings in order, because the state that checks them is getting faster.
FAQ
What is the UAE Cabinet AI Advisor approved on 2 September 2026?
It is a system of 32 specialised AI advisors, built on agentic AI, that analyses the programmes, policies and draft legislation brought before the UAE Cabinet. For each subject it assesses the financial, economic, social and environmental impact, compares it with global best practice and the UAE’s national priorities, and presents recommendations to ministers. It works 24 hours a day, follows up on the implementation of decisions, protects the confidentiality of Cabinet matters and meets UAE cybersecurity standards.
Will AI be taught in private schools in the UAE?
Yes. On 2 September 2026 the Cabinet approved the implementation of an AI curriculum across all public and private schools in the UAE, after a pilot in public schools. The curriculum covers AI data, algorithms, applications, risks and ethical use. AI has been a subject in government schools from kindergarten to Grade 12 since the 2025-2026 academic year; the start date and the format for private schools on foreign curricula have not been published yet.
How many teachers will the UAE train to use AI?
The programme reviewed by the Cabinet aims to train 22,000 teachers and educators to use AI as a support in teaching, assessment, curriculum analysis, lesson planning and fostering innovation among students. The timetable and the training providers were not announced in the Cabinet statement.
What were the UAE government’s digital transformation results for 2025?
Federal entities completed more than 308 million digital transactions, recorded 88.5 million visits to government websites and 15.8 million app downloads across 1,633 digital services, reached 92% customer satisfaction with priority services and delivered 471 digital transformation projects. The UAE ranked first worldwide in the telecommunications infrastructure, digital skills and AI adoption indices.
