OpenAI and the Abu Dhabi Government have launched a machine-readable government (MRG). This is an Abu Dhabi Government initiative that enables routine regulatory compliance assessments, such as those related to issuing permits and certificates, to be carried out consistently, with each decision traceable to the governing rule.
Sam Altman, Chief Executive Officer, OpenAI, said: “Making AI accessible for everyone requires transforming public sector delivery, helping it become faster, more responsive and more effective. By making certain laws machine-readable, while keeping people in control of decision-making, Abu Dhabi has set a new standard for AI-enabled public services. We’re proud to support Abu Dhabi’s AI vision, grounded in our shared commitment to responsible innovation.”
The first government service is already using the system, with more to follow across the emirate. It translates a defined set of government policies and regulations into machine-readable form. It is a pillar in enabling AI-powered systems to assist experts in navigating complex decisions. The officials will remain involved in overseeing the system and accountable for its decisions.
His Excellency Ahmed Tamim Hisham Al Kuttab, Chairman of DGE, said: “When we set out to build the world’s first AI-native government, we knew that applying AI to old processes would only take us so far. The harder task was making policy itself intelligent, and that is what a Machine-Readable Government does. The rules that shape daily life- how a permit is approved, how a tender is decided, how a service reaches the public- will now be as capable as the systems we build to serve our people. It is the connective tissue between Abu Dhabi’s ambition and its delivery, and it puts us on a path no other government has yet taken.”
The first pilot use case is already in production with the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), focused on food imports, in collaboration with Inception42 (a G42 Company). The pilot validated a reusable Policy Adoption Engine that converts narrative policy into automated compliance checks, with every decision traceable back to the precise rule that produced the outcome.
Following this initial rollout, Abu Dhabi plans to expand MRG across government entities, with upcoming applications planned for construction permitting, business and freelance licensing, data access governance, HR compliance, and procurement.
AI processing for MRG is powered by OpenAI’s UAE inference residency, ensuring real-time model computation happens strictly on GPUs within UAE data centers under a 'fail-closed' security architecture governed by UAE cybersecurity standards and subject to Abu Dhabi law. From internal research by government teams to automated compliance checks on commercial applications, establishing the UAE as the first country in the Middle East to deploy OpenAI's GPT models using in-country inference infrastructure in the UAE.
Privacy and data protection are built into MRG from the start with safeguards jointly agreed on by DGE and OpenAI. The Abu Dhabi government retains full ownership of all data created through the system. That data is not used to train AI models and clear rules govern how it is stored, used and deleted.
A press note shared by the company further stated that this marks a key milestone in Abu Dhabi’s mission to become the world’s first AI-native government by 2027. The note added that since governments follow complex laws, procedures, and policies to approve products, license businesses, approve products, and award contracts, MRG initially aims to change how these rules are applied while keeping the rules themselves unchanged.
It ensures written policies are AI-readable, takes a case, checks it against the rules, and generates a decision linked directly to the exact clause that informed it. Routine cases can be processed autonomously, around the clock, returning decisions in minutes that once took days of manual review.
OpenAI confirmed in the note that human judgment and oversight remain central throughout. The note added government teams set the standards, review complex cases, and maintain strict responsibility for every final decision. The framework is not intended to make autonomous decisions in high-stakes areas or determinations that materially affect individuals’ rights, eligibility or access to essential services.
Structuring policies into a single, machine-readable format also gives policymakers a clear view of where regulations overlap or conflict across departments. It allows officials to test proposed policy changes across related rules before they are enacted, helping simplify and strengthen regulations while preserving established legislation. The initiative is led and governed by the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi (DGE).
MRG is a cornerstone of the AED 13 billion ($3.5 billion) Abu Dhabi Government Digital Strategy 2025 to 2027. It will integrate with the emirate's unified service app, TAMM, which consolidates more than 1,200 public and private services. With use cases active across 40 government entities and all Abu Dhabi Government civil servants trained in AI, MRG provides the underlying foundation that makes government policy ready for AI.
