How ‘new intelligence’ is moving AI from pilots to scale

Artificial intelligence is moving beyond emerging technology to become part of the infrastructure shaping how economies, governments, and businesses operate across the Middle East.

That shift will take center stage at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi, where the 2026 edition is built around “New Intelligence” and the growing role of sovereign AI, agentic systems, and AI-native economies.

The event, expected to bring together more than 400 AI companies and 180 speakers from more than 60 countries, comes as countries across the region move from experimenting with AI to deploying it across government services, industries, and critical infrastructure.

SCALING ACROSS INDUSTRIES

Ayman Hassan, VP Commercial, AI Everything, says this edition’s theme, “The New Intelligence Order from Abu Dhabi, the AI Capital of the World,” takes artificial intelligence beyond the technology itself and into how it enables industries to become smarter.

“Because AI doesn’t work the same way across every industry. While model size or capabilities matter, AI’s value becomes more meaningful when it makes people more efficient and productive, helps businesses operate better and serve customers intuitively, and delivers seamless public service,” Hassan states.

He explains that this shift is evident in the range of AI companies emerging this year, from Arabic LLMs and open-weight models to contextually relevant enterprise AI agents.

He adds that this year’s focus centers on real, compelling use cases and practical applications across sectors like government administration and public services, banking and finance, energy, healthcare, and more.

“We want the conversation to move beyond “AI is good” to how new intelligence can be purposeful, and make economic and social sense.”

LARGE SCALE DEPLOYMENT

Hassan also discusses how AI is moving beyond experimentation and pilots toward large-scale deployment. “The UAE, and especially Abu Dhabi, has taken a strong lead in large-scale deployment and acceleration of AI across industries and markets.

“In the UAE specifically, the government is setting the pace, encouraging and incentivizing the private sector to accelerate deployment. This includes a target to deploy agentic AI across 50% of government services within two years, while the government recently launched a new Cabinet AI Adviser system specialized in analyzing policies, legislation, strategies, and systems.

“We can see this in the initiatives announced by the UAE government, as well as the strong public sector participation at the event, with more than 50 government entities presenting, led by the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi, our Host Partner.”

He points to DGE’s role in steering Abu Dhabi beyond AI adoption toward embedding AI into the design of government itself. “It is building the foundations of something much more consequential: the world’s first truly AI-native government, and over time, one of the world’s first AI-native societies.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONNECTION

Hassan discusses the ecosystem approach behind Ai Everything Abu Dhabi, which brings together governments and researchers with infrastructure providers, enterprises and investors. He says such an ecosystem is critical because no company or country can build the full AI stack alone.

“A breakthrough model still needs compute, energy, usable data, skilled people, capital and workable regulation. Progress in one area can stall because a decision in another has not been made yet.”

The participating enterprises alone represent close to $10 trillion in combined market value, reflecting the scale of capital and corporate interest now surrounding AI.

Hassan also points to growing investor appetite.

“We have over 200 VCs, corporate investors and sovereign wealth funds coming to the event, but what’s particularly noteworthy is that they are coming from 25 countries and nearly 60% are new to the show, signaling the growing appetite of global AI investments flowing into the UAE.”

Bringing these groups together, he says, allows the different parts of the AI ecosystem to move in step.

“Enterprises can define the demand, researchers and technology providers can address it, and investors and governments can help establish the conditions for deployment.”

The event also serves as a bridge between global technology companies and regional businesses and government entities, giving international players a route into the UAE market.

Hassan says this is particularly important for companies entering the market for the first time.

“We’ve built an established network of relationships globally, including companies, startups, investors and innovation hubs, and Ai Everything Abu Dhabi becomes familiar ground for them to meet and engage with new markets like Abu Dhabi, as well as get the right meetings and opportunities to further set up base in the capital city.”