Like a friend who shares the news over tea — no jargon, no fluff, just what matters across the Gulf.
ISSUE 04, 15 June 2026
Ai MAJLiS
- UAE
- SAUDI ARABIA
- QATAR
- KUWAIT
- BAHRAIN
- OMAN
Marhaba and ahlan — welcome to Issue #004 of Ai MAJLiS. Big news out of Abu Dhabi just hours before we sat down to write this: the UAE has merged three federal bodies into a single AI and Data Authority — arguably the most significant institutional shift in Gulf AI governance this year. Saudi Arabia’s AI workforce numbers just got a serious upgrade from Coursera. And a fresh Visa study shows something we suspected but didn’t have numbers for: AI shopping has gone fully mainstream across the Gulf — though nobody quite trusts it with their wallet yet. Grab the khawa, this one’s packed.
01
UAE - Governance - Breaking
The UAE Just Merged Three Federal Bodies Into One AI and Data Authority
This is the biggest UAE governance story of the year, and it landed hours before this issue went out. On Sunday, June 14, 2026, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum approved the creation of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Authority — a single federal body reporting directly to the Cabinet, merging three previously separate entities: the Office of AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications; the Digital Government Sector at the TDRA; and the UAE Data Office.
Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, has been appointed Chairman. The Authority’s mandate is sweeping: develop and lead the national AI strategy, manage government data quality and sharing across federal entities, operate AI-powered national data platforms for evidence-based decision-making, and propose national AI policies and legislation.
The most striking number in the announcement: the Authority supports plans to deliver half of all government services through agentic AI within two years, with 400 officials overseeing implementation.
3 → 1
Federal bodies merged into one Authority
50%
Govt services via agentic AI within 2 years
400
Officials overseeing implementation
"Our goal is a government that is faster, smarter and always one step ahead."
— Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President & Prime Minister of the UAE
Sheikh Mohammed described the broader vision as “the government of the future” — powered by data and agentic AI, capable of making decisions faster, delivering services more effectively, and continuously improving while staying focused on people rather than bureaucracy.
02
SAUDI ARABIA - Workforce & Hiring
In Saudi Arabia, a Generative AI Credential Now Beats Experience
A new Coursera report has quantified something striking about the Saudi job market: verified generative AI skills now outweigh years of experience in employer decision-making. According to Coursera’s Micro-Credentials Impact Report 2026, 99% of Saudi employers use skills-based hiring in some form for entry-level roles, with 86% applying it extensively.
The most eye-catching finding: 79% of Saudi employers would prefer a candidate with verified generative AI credentials over a more experienced candidate without them. This marks a fundamental shift in how Saudi companies evaluate talent — credentials are becoming a faster, more reliable signal than résumé tenure.
99%
Saudi employers use skills-based hiring
86%
Apply it extensively for entry-level roles
79%
Prefer GenAI credentials over experience
This builds directly on a SDAIA-led initiative — the SAMAI programme has already trained more than one million Saudi citizens in AI technologies within a single year. Combined with Deloitte’s recent finding that two-thirds of Saudi consumers now actively use generative AI in daily life (up from 49% just twelve months ago), the Kingdom’s AI workforce transformation is happening faster than its own infrastructure buildout.
Separately, a Saudi delegation from SDAIA concluded a five-day program in Brussels and Berlin with the World Bank, reviewing international best practices in AI governance and data policy — reinforcing the Kingdom’s effort to align its domestic AI buildout with global governance standards.
03
GCC Wide - Consumer AI · FinTech
AI Shopping Has Gone Fully Mainstream Across the Gulf — But Nobody Trusts It With Their Wallet
Visa’s 2026 Stay Secure study, conducted by Wakefield Research across 17 CEMEA markets including all six GCC countries, paints the clearest picture yet of how Gulf consumers actually use AI day to day — and it’s not in government dashboards or enterprise pilots. It’s in their shopping carts.
90%
Qatar consumers use AI to shop
86%
Kuwait & Oman AI shopping use
85%
UAE AI shopping use
Bahrain sits at 83%, and Saudi Arabia matches Qatar at 90%. The top use cases: comparing prices (the leading use case in most markets — 63% in Saudi, 60% in Qatar, 55% in Oman and Kuwait), finding gift ideas, and checking reviews. In the UAE specifically, checking reviews is the top use case at 60%, and 69% of UAE consumers have purchased directly through social media — making social commerce both a primary shopping channel and a primary fraud vector.
Here’s the catch: despite near-universal AI-assisted shopping, trust in AI to complete transactions remains very low. Only 28% in Qatar, 33% in Saudi Arabia, and just 32% in the UAE said they would trust AI agents to handle checkout independently.
- Opportunity Spotlight
Visa has already launched its “Agentic Ready” program in Qatar and across CEMEA — a structured pathway for issuers to test agent-initiated transactions in a controlled, production-grade environment. The gap between AI-assisted shopping (near-universal) and AI-completed payments (under one-third trust) is exactly where agentic commerce infrastructure needs to mature next.
Financial scams remain a real concern — 46% of UAE consumers experienced a financial scam in the past 12 months — yet 85% believe AI will play an important role in protecting consumers from fraud going forward.
04
QATAR - Islamic Finance · AI Ethics
Doha Hosts a Landmark Conversation: AI Meets Islamic Finance
On June 16, Doha hosts the 12th Doha Islamic Finance Conference — bringing together Islamic finance experts, policymakers, academics, and technology specialists to examine how AI is reshaping the global Islamic financial industry. This is one of the more unusual but consequential AI conversations happening in the Gulf this year.
Among the sessions: a Bahrain-based consultant will examine the legal and Shariah regulations governing virtual influencer activities, while a scholar from Ajman Bank will discuss the jurisprudential and ethical dimensions of commerce conducted through virtual influencers — a topic that sits squarely at the intersection of generative AI, marketing, and Islamic commercial law.
This comes as Qatar’s broader AI ecosystem continues to mature — Web Summit Qatar 2026 and the World Summit AI-Qatar events have positioned Doha as a serious convening point for global AI discourse, while the QIA-backed Qai entity continues expanding its governance-first national AI mandate.
05
KUWAIT / BAHRAIN / OMAN - AI Practitioners — Status Check
The "AI Practitioners": Where Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman Really Stand
While the UAE consolidates federal AI governance and Saudi Arabia’s AI workforce numbers surge, it’s worth taking stock of the three GCC countries that BCG classifies as “AI Practitioners” — Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman (alongside Qatar) — one tier below the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s “AI Contenders” status.
Per BCG’s framework, AI Practitioners are countries with developing infrastructure and initiatives, but still in early stages — every GCC country has a national AI strategy or roadmap, but execution maturity varies significantly.
On consumer AI adoption specifically — using this week’s Visa data as a proxy — Kuwait and Oman are both at 86% AI-assisted shopping adoption, essentially on par with the UAE’s 85%. Bahrain trails slightly at 83%. This suggests that at the consumer level, the gap between “AI Contenders” and “AI Practitioners” is much narrower than the infrastructure gap implies — ordinary people in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman are using AI tools just as readily as their UAE counterparts.
The Middle East Institute’s analysis remains the most useful framing for what comes next: if Kuwait launches a national AI infrastructure company — similar to UAE’s G42, Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN, or Qatar’s Qai — to coordinate capital, energy, and compute at scale, it could move from participant to shaper in the Gulf’s AI buildout. The same logic applies to Bahrain and Oman.
Meanwhile, Emirati startups are showcasing AI innovations at Impact 2026 — including ReachLLM, a company focused on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the AI-era successor to traditional SEO, helping brands maintain visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. ReachLLM plans to expand across the wider MENA region — a signal of the kind of cross-border AI services business that “AI Practitioner” markets like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman could increasingly both consume and produce.
GCC AI SNAPSHOT
Where Each Country Stands This Week
If you only remember one thing from this issue, make it this: the UAE just removed an entire layer of bureaucracy standing between AI policy and AI deployment — on the same weekend that data from across the Gulf showed ordinary consumers in every single GCC country are already using AI tools daily, whether or not their government has caught up.
That’s the real story of the GCC’s AI year so far. Governments are racing to build the institutions and infrastructure that match what their citizens are already doing. The infrastructure gap between “AI Contenders” and “AI Practitioners” is real — but the demand gap might already be closed.
That’s our majlis for this week. Pass it along to someone who’d enjoy the read, and we’ll pour the next round next Sunday — inshallah.
