UAE Organisations Move Into AI’s Front Rank as 42% Reach Leadership Status
The United Arab Emirates has spent years building the foundations for an economy in which AI is treated not as a fashionable add-on but as infrastructure, embedded in public services, regulatory design and corporate strategy, and that long-term positioning is now reflected in new survey data that suggests the country has moved into the upper tier of global AI adoption.
A study by Boston Consulting Group finds that 42% of UAE organisations qualify as what it defines as “AI Leaders”, placing the country broadly in line with the global average of 40% and slightly ahead of the wider GCC region, where 39% meet the same benchmark.
The report, which surveyed 200 C-suite executives and assessed 41 digital and AI capabilities across seven industries, concludes that 37% of UAE organisations have reached the “Scaling” stage of AI maturity, meaning that artificial intelligence systems are being deployed across business functions rather than confined to experimental pilots or innovation labs.
That distinction matters because across Europe, North America and large parts of Asia, many companies have invested in proofs of concept without restructuring their processes, data architecture or management accountability to support sustained enterprise-wide use.
The Shift from Experimentation to Infrastructure
Moving from pilot programmes to scaled implementation requires more than technical capability; it requires executive sponsorship, budget reallocation, retraining of staff and, in many cases, a willingness to disrupt existing reporting lines and incentive structures.
In that context, a 37% scaling rate suggests that a substantial minority of UAE organisations are treating AI as operational infrastructure rather than as a reputational signal.
Dr Lars Littig, Managing Director & Partner and Middle East Leader of the Tech & Digital Advantage practice at BCG, argues that this progress reflects deliberate coordination between national policy and corporate execution.
“The UAE's emergence as a significantly advanced AI market, with 42% of organisations now qualifying as AI Leaders, is a direct reflection of the nation's strategic investments in AI infrastructure and unwavering commitment to its AI 2031 Strategy,” Littig said. “The alignment between national AI ambitions and business outcomes positions the UAE not only as a regional pioneer but increasingly as a global benchmark for how strategic AI investments can drive economic transformation.”
The assertion is ambitious and, as with any consultancy-led benchmark, dependent on methodology, yet the broader direction is difficult to ignore.
Unlike markets where AI enthusiasm accelerated abruptly following the release of generative systems such as ChatGPT, the UAE’s trajectory has been institutional and policy-driven, with artificial intelligence integrated into digital identity systems, urban infrastructure platforms and state-backed investment strategies long before generative AI became a mass consumer topic.
The Financial Differential Between Leaders and Laggards
The most consequential element of the report lies not in the maturity labels but in the financial spread between organisations categorised as Leaders and those defined as Laggards.
Across the GCC, AI Leaders deliver up to 1.7 times higher total shareholder returns and 1.5 times higher EBIT margins compared with Laggards, while allocating 6.2% of their IT budgets to AI initiatives in 2025 compared with 4.2% among their less advanced peers. BCG projects that by 2028, the value generated by AI Leaders could be three to five times higher than that of Laggards, potentially widening the competitive gap across sectors.
If sustained, that divergence would reshape regional corporate hierarchies and entrench advantage among firms capable of sustained capital expenditure, data governance and executive discipline.
At the same time, causation is difficult to isolate, because companies with stronger governance frameworks and healthier balance sheets are often those most able to invest early in emerging technologies, which means AI may be amplifying pre-existing strengths rather than independently generating them.
Globally, companies capturing the largest gains from AI infrastructure demand, including Nvidia, have benefited not only from algorithmic progress but from chip scarcity, export controls and geopolitical competition, all of which shape supply and pricing power.
The Gulf’s AI expansion operates inside that same global system of constrained semiconductors, cross-border capital flows and shifting regulatory alliances.
Public Sector Acceleration and Systemic Exposure
One of the more striking findings in the report is that the GCC public sector achieves the highest AI maturity level globally across surveyed markets, a result that reflects the region’s governance structure, where centralised decision-making and state-backed financing can accelerate digital transformation in healthcare, transport, urban management and public administration.
In many Western economies, government procurement cycles slow adoption, yet in the Gulf, public institutions often function as early adopters and anchor customers for digital systems, creating scale effects that spill into the private sector.
That structural advantage, however, also introduces exposure to global supply chain constraints, particularly in high-performance computing infrastructure and advanced semiconductor access.
The report notes that AI Laggards are 18% more likely to face organisational and process barriers, 17% more likely to struggle with algorithm implementation due to data limitations, and 10% more likely to encounter technology constraints, including security risks, responsible AI challenges and limited local GPU availability.
Those constraints are not unique to the region; they reflect global competition over chips, cloud infrastructure and export policy, particularly as the United States, China and the European Union tighten controls around advanced computing technologies.
Agentic AI and the Next Layer of Complexity
The study also highlights that 38% of GCC organisations are experimenting with agentic AI systems, compared with a global average of 46%, and that the share of value generated from these initiatives is projected to increase from 17% to 29% by 2028.
Agentic systems, which are designed to execute tasks autonomously within defined parameters, promise efficiency gains but introduce questions around oversight, accountability and risk management that extend beyond technical implementation.
Wietse Bloemzaad, Managing Director & Partner at BCG X, acknowledges both the acceleration and the structural work required.
“While the GCC has demonstrated advanced digital maturity over recent years, we're witnessing remarkable acceleration in AI maturity, marking a fundamental commitment to AI as a core value creator,” Bloemzaad said. “However, the journey ahead requires addressing key organisational challenges, including cross-functional collaboration barriers and data quality issues, and moving beyond pilots toward enterprise-wide transformation.”
The reported eight-point surge in AI maturity between 2024 and 2025, which leaves AI capability trailing overall digital maturity by just two points, suggests acceleration rather than plateau.
Leadership in a Moving Global Market
The UAE’s claim to AI leadership is supported by measurable indicators in scaling rates, budget allocation and public sector deployment, yet leadership in artificial intelligence is not static, because it depends on sustained access to compute capacity, talent pipelines, regulatory alignment and global semiconductor supply chains that remain politically contested.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly embedded in capital expenditure decisions and operating models across the country’s corporate landscape, but the ultimate test will not be maturity scores or survey benchmarks; it will be whether these systems generate durable productivity growth, diversified revenue streams and resilience in a global technology economy that remains volatile, capital-intensive and shaped by forces far beyond any single national strategy.