UAE Companies Fast-Track Agentic AI Despite Governance Gaps

Overview

• Cisco’s latest index reports 92% of UAE organisations plan to introduce AI agents, with 41% expecting them to work alongside staff within a year and 86% feeling rising pressure to show results.
• More than half already apply AI to efficiency use cases, and 69% say they are seeing gains in profitability, productivity and innovation.
• To support deployment, 51% plan new data-centre capacity within a year, while only 38% believe they have sufficient in-house AI talent.
• Dataiku’s survey finds 94% of data leaders lack full visibility into AI decisions, 62% doubt their systems would pass a basic audit, and 61% warn AI-generated code flaws pose major risk.
• Despite these gaps, 72% would still allow autonomous AI decisions, even as a McKinsey study says many Gulf companies remain stuck in pilots and only 11% are realising measurable returns.