Client Overview

The Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has long been recognized as a global leader in digital government and innovation. Having achieved remarkable milestones in citizen-centric service delivery, the UAE sought to define the next evolution of its government transformation, one that embraces emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, to future-proof public services and maintain global leadership.

Innavera was commissioned to develop a national-level AI and digital transformation roadmap, a comprehensive strategy to guide policy, innovation, and implementation across ministries and entities.

Challenge

After years of successful digital initiatives, the UAE government wanted to move beyond digitization to achieve AI-enabled governance, where public services become predictive, adaptive, and integrated around citizen needs.

While several projects had been initiated to achieve “7-star” service excellence, challenges persisted around siloed innovation, lack of cohesive data infrastructure, and limited cross-ministry alignment for AI adoption.

The Government recognized the need for a unified roadmap that:

• Consolidates previous digital gains into an integrated vision for AI adoption.
• Embeds governance, ethics, and data frameworks to support responsible innovation.
• Enables consistent delivery of next-generation, citizen-centric services.

Innavera’s Approach

Innavera applied its Digital Government Strategy Framework, combining international best practices with local context, to deliver a pragmatic yet forward-looking roadmap.

Our multidisciplinary team worked with senior government leaders, innovation units, and service delivery departments to align vision, technology, and operations.

Key initiatives included:

• Strategic Assessment: Conducted a baseline analysis of digital maturity across entities, identifying gaps in governance, data integration, and emerging technology readiness.
• Global Benchmarking: Studied leading digital governments (Singapore, Estonia, South Korea) to extract proven frameworks for AI policy, ethics, and delivery.
• AI Opportunity Mapping: Identified 60+ high-impact use cases for AI integration across core citizen services (licensing, health, education, infrastructure).
• Roadmap Design: Developed a unified digital and AI roadmap outlining priorities, dependencies, and sequencing for the next 3–5 years.
• Governance Frameworks: Proposed policies for responsible AI use, data ethics, and inter-ministerial collaboration.
• Culture of Innovation Plan: Created a structured approach to foster agile experimentation, upskilling, and innovation labs within government entities.

Outcome & Impact

The resulting roadmap provided the UAE Government with a strategic blueprint for scaling innovation and embedding AI across public service delivery.

Results:

• Established a comprehensive national AI roadmap with actionable initiatives and measurable KPIs.
• Identified over 60 high-impact AI use cases aligned with strategic national priorities.
• Strengthened data governance and ethical frameworks for safe and responsible AI adoption.
• Laid the groundwork for cross-ministry collaboration and unified service delivery.
• Positioned the UAE to lead globally in AI-powered governance and digital innovation.