INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY

GOVERNMENT

Titled‘ After a Decade of Digital Gains, AI Is Reshaping Citizens’ Expectations in the GCC’, the report highlighted the strength of the UAE’ s digital government experience and its potential to support the next phase of AI-enabled public services.

Conducted across 44 countries, the survey also found that the UAE ranked first globally in government digital service usage at 53 %. More than three-quarters( 76 %) of UAE respondents said their latest online government transaction delivered a better experience than their typical private-sector interaction, reinforcing the strength of the country’ s digital government ecosystem.

The UAE’ s digital foundation is increasingly extending into AI adoption, with 82 % of respondents reporting weekly AI usage. This high level of engagement was accompanied by relatively positive attitudes towards AI in government, with 53 % of UAE respondents believing its benefits outweighed the risks, compared with 49 % across

Rami Mourtada, Partner & Director, Digital Transformation, BCG the GCC and 36 % globally.

However, greater exposure to AI has also brought new considerations into focus. While GCC citizens remained more optimistic about AI in government than their global counterparts, overall optimism declined by 21 % since 2024.

The findings pointed towards a more hybrid model of service delivery, with GCC citizens increasingly favouring AI for simpler services while retaining human involvement for more complex interactions.

Only around 4 % of GCC respondents preferred services delivered exclusively by humans without AI support, compared with almost one in ten globally.

Rami Mourtada, Partner & Director, Digital Transformation, BCG, said:“ The UAE’ s strong digital government experience reflects years of investment in making public services more accessible, seamless, and responsive to citizens’ needs.”

“ As AI becomes more embedded in public services, governments have an opportunity to build on this foundation with more AI-enabled experiences and process re-engineering to continue focusing on quality and convenience. This next phase will be about deploying AI where it creates clear value, while maintaining human expertise for more complex citizen needs.”

The BCG report also revealed strong demand among GCC citizens for the next generation of AI-enabled government services.

The GCC emerged as the most AIreceptive region among those surveyed, with 79 % of citizens open to AI-centred government interactions, compared with 66 % globally.

Notably, three of the four most strongly supported AI applications in government

involved agentic AI use cases, providing an opportunity for governments to explore services that move beyond providing information to supporting or completing actions on citizens’ behalf.

This openness was reflected across several practical applications. According to the survey, 82 % of GCC respondents were comfortable with AI providing roundthe-clock access to information and services, while 81 % supported AI assisting government customer service agents.

Meanwhile, 79 % were comfortable with AI detecting fraud and automatically following up, while 78 % supported AI identifying services for which citizens qualified and taking action on their behalf.

However, citizens were not calling for AIonly services. Preference for the model of‘ AI for simple services, people for complex ones’ increased by nine percentage points to 50 % over the past two years, reinforcing the importance of combining AI-enabled speed and availability with human judgement for more complex or higherstakes interactions.

The opportunity builds on the GCC’ s strong track record in digital government service quality. In 2026, the GCC remained the only surveyed region where a majority of citizens rated government digital services above those of the private sector, at 72 %. •

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INTELLIGENT CIO MIDDLE EAST www. intelligentcio. com