Abu Dhabi and OpenAI launched Machine-Readable Government (MRG). It turns a defined set of the emirate’s rules into code that AI can check permit and certificate applications against. It was one of four agreements Abu Dhabi entities signed with OpenAI, witnessed by Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Applicants get faster decisions with a paper trail. The system takes a case, checks it against the rules and returns a decision linked to the exact clause behind it. Routine cases can run around the clock, and the partners say decisions that once took days of manual review now take minutes.
There are limits. Government teams set the standards, review complex cases, and stay responsible for every final decision. Abu Dhabi and OpenAI say MRG isn’t meant to make autonomous calls in high-stakes areas, or on anything that materially affects a person’s rights, eligibility or access to essential services.
When we set out to build the world’s first AI-native government, we knew that applying AI to old processes would only take us so far. The harder task was making policy itself intelligent, and that is what a Machine-Readable Government does.
Ahmed Tamim Hisham Al Kuttab, Chairman, Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi
Al Kuttab’s department (DGE, Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement) leads the project. The first pilot is already in production with the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), on food imports. The pilot was built in collaboration with Inception42, part of the UAE AI group G42. It’s unclear how many cases the pilot handles, and we haven’t seen an independent assessment of how well it works.
Officials also get a single view of where regulations overlap or clash across departments. That lets them test a proposed policy change against related rules before it takes effect.
Processing runs on OpenAI’s UAE inference residency, so the models compute only on GPUs in UAE data centres, under UAE cybersecurity standards and Abu Dhabi law. Abu Dhabi keeps ownership of all data the system creates, and that data isn’t used to train AI models. Abu Dhabi and OpenAI say the UAE is the first country in the Middle East to deploy OpenAI’s GPT models using in-country inference.
MRG is part of the AED 13 billion ($3.5 billion) Abu Dhabi Government Digital Strategy 2025 to 2027, and Abu Dhabi aims to become the first AI-native government by 2027. The system will plug into TAMM, the emirate’s unified services app, with more than 1,200 public and private services. Neither side has disclosed the cost of the OpenAI deals.
Food imports are only the start. Construction permitting, business and freelance licensing, data access governance, HR compliance, and procurement are next on the list, though no dates have been set. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, says Abu Dhabi “has set a new standard for AI-enabled public services”. The next pilots will show whether decisions in minutes hold up beyond a single authority.
