Abu Dhabi has expanded its artificial intelligence transformation by deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot to 35,000 government employees across 27 government entities. The initiative marks one of the world’s largest public sector deployments of generative AI for workplace productivity.
The rollout forms part of the Frontier Employee Programme, led by the Department of Government Enablement (DGE). It adds 26,000 new Microsoft 365 Copilot licences to the 9,000 already in use across government departments.
All licences operate with Advanced Data Residency, ensuring AI data remains within the UAE. This approach helps government agencies meet data sovereignty, security and regulatory requirements while using generative AI tools.
AI training to support responsible adoption
Alongside the deployment, DGE has introduced structured training and certification programmes to help employees use AI responsibly and securely. The programme also includes a dedicated AI Adoption and Enablement framework that focuses on user readiness, governance and change management.
The initiative aims to integrate AI into everyday government work while maintaining compliance with public sector standards.
AI Factory to develop hundreds of government use cases
In parallel with the Copilot rollout, Abu Dhabi is building an AI Factory across government entities. The platform will develop and scale hundreds of AI applications and more than 1,000 AI agents.
These AI agents will support tasks such as document processing, citizen query management, policy analysis and administrative automation.
The wider programme builds on the strategic agreement signed in March 2025 between DGE, Microsoft and Core42 to establish a sovereign cloud environment for Abu Dhabi Government. The infrastructure already supports more than 11 million digital interactions each day.
Digital services continue to expand
Abu Dhabi’s unified government services platform, TAMM, currently provides more than 1,150 public and private services through Microsoft technologies, including Dynamics 365, Azure and Power BI.
Meanwhile, DGE and Microsoft continue to strengthen their cybersecurity partnership through the Government Security Operations Centre. The platform, built on Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR, protects around 60,000 government users.
Part of Abu Dhabi’s AI-native government strategy
The Copilot deployment supports Abu Dhabi’s Government Digital Strategy 2025–2027, approved by the Executive Council in January 2025.
The AED13 billion strategy aims to integrate AI into all government services by 2027. It also targets full sovereign cloud adoption, automation of government processes and the development of more than 200 AI solutions.
According to the government, the strategy is expected to contribute AED24 billion to Abu Dhabi’s GDP and create more than 5,000 local jobs by 2027.
