Writing on agentic AI for Dubai companies.
Dated notes on the agentic AI transition in Dubai, on build versus buy, and on what the agenda asks of an owner-run company. Measured, sourced and short. Every statistic links to where it came from, and nothing here presumes a reader’s finances or implies anyone’s endorsement.
Abu Dhabi’s Chamber chose one vendor for 102,000 SMEs. Here is the independent alternative.
In June 2026 the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed a partnership with Presight, a G42 company, to bring agentic AI to the more than 102,000 small and medium businesses registered with it. It is a serious programme from serious institutions. It is also one approach among two, and an owner deciding what to do about agentic AI should understand both.
Build or buy: a Dubai owner’s guide to the agentic AI decision
Every owner in Dubai who takes the two-year agentic AI window seriously arrives at the same fork. Buy software that already exists and fit the business to it, or build a system around how the business already works. Both are legitimate. This note is about how to tell which is right for a particular company, and it is written by people who build, so read it with that in mind.
Adoption is not transformation
The UAE leads the world in AI adoption. In the first quarter of 2026, 70.1 percent of the country’s working-age population used AI, by Microsoft’s measure, against a worldwide figure of 17.8 percent. It is a remarkable number and it is true. It is also measuring the wrong thing for an owner who wants to know whether their business has changed.
What the two-year agentic AI window asks of a 20-person company
On 4 May 2026 the Crown Prince of Dubai launched a two-year programme to move the emirate’s private sector to agentic AI. Most of the coverage has been about the city. This note is about one company in it: owner-run, twenty people, real revenue, running on spreadsheets and a dozen group chats. What does the window actually ask of that owner, and in what order?
What this is for
Most of what is written about agentic AI in the UAE is written about the city or the country, and it is written for a general reader. These notes are written for one reader, the owner of a company of twenty to sixty people who has been told the business must change within two years and wants to know what that means on a Tuesday. They draw on what we see in the room when we map an operation, which is described on the method page, and on the three systems described under work in production. When a public announcement bears on an owner-run company, we aim to write a short note on it, with the primary source linked and one concrete implication. The agentic AI page and the questions owners ask cover the ground these notes assume.