The UAE is training around 80,000 government employees to become AI super users. H.E. Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, shared this at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi.

He spoke during the “In Conversation” session. The topic was “Building the Government of the Future: Data, Agentic AI and a Shifting Global Order.”

Training Government Employees to Build Agents

Al Olama said people are central to the UAE’s approach. AI is transforming economies and the global workforce. In his view, everyone needs to be equipped to understand, use and benefit from it.

“Our playbook is simple: every single person to ride this wave needs to understand this technology, needs to be able to utilise it, and needs to be able to benefit from it,” he said.

He then described the scale of the effort. “We’ve gone on a very aggressive campaign to train around 80,000 government employees, to become super users of AI, being able to build agents and leverage these models.”

In short, the goal is for these AI super users to build agents and make full use of advanced AI models.

A Prediction on One-Person Companies

The Minister also looked ahead to the future of business. He predicted the rise of one-person companies powered by AI agents. These firms could grow into multimillion or even billion-dollar businesses.

He said agents could matter for a country like the UAE. They could “multiply their ability, scale and impact.” As a result, the UAE could compete economically with much larger markets.

Balancing Innovation and Regulation

Al Olama was also asked how governments can balance innovation and regulation. He pointed to a common problem.

“The challenge that most governments have is that the innovator sits in the innovator’s section and the regulator in the regulator’s section, with no cross-pollination of thought and planning,” he said.

The UAE, he said, takes a different path. “In the UAE, many times we’ve had the innovator come into the regulator’s seat, and the regulator being asked by our leadership to think like an innovator. And that’s a secret sauce.”

Defining What It Means to Win in AI

The session continued with a lively audience Q&A. Topics included autonomous agents, intellectual property, competitiveness and opportunities for younger generations.

One question asked what it means to “win” in AI. Al Olama answered that success is about people. “Our definition of winning is that you change the largest number of lives of people positively by using artificial intelligence,” he said.

He added that the government is looking beyond productivity gains and economic outputs. Its AI deployments focus on improving quality of life.

Where the Benefits Come From

Al Olama also addressed competition with established global AI hubs. He said the greatest economic and social benefits do not necessarily come from where technology is invented. They come from where it is embraced and applied.

“We want to be the fastest to market. We want to be the country and the cities that deploy AI to improve quality of life in the most effective way possible,” he said.

The Takeaway

Al Olama’s message was clear. The UAE wants broad AI skills across government. Training around 80,000 AI super users is a central part of that plan.

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