Abu Dhabi Expands Sovereign AI Strategy with Microsoft Copilot Rollout
Abu Dhabi Government has announced the rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot across Abu Dhabi’s public sector, equipping tens of thousands of government employees with generative AI in their daily tools as the emirate advances its bid to become the world’s first AI-native government by 2027.
The initiative standardises Microsoft 365 Copilot as the AI productivity platform for Abu Dhabi Government, embedding generative AI capabilities into daily operations and public service delivery. Faster, AI-assisted decision-making across the government will translate into quicker, more responsive services for Abu Dhabi’s citizens, residents, and businesses.
All licences are provisioned with Advanced Data Residency (ADR), ensuring that all AI processing takes place within UAE borders, a model of sovereign AI deployment that is attracting growing interest from governments abroad. The rollout also includes AI training and certification programmes, ensuring employees can use these tools responsibly, securely, and to maximum effect.
“Abu Dhabi is building a government that is AI-native by design, where technology elevates how government entities operate, collaborate, and serve the community,” said Wesam Lootah, Director-General of GovDigital at Department of Government Enablement (DGE).
The rollout also supports the objectives of Abu Dhabi’s Digital Strategy 2025-2027, which calls for government-wide adoption of sovereign cloud infrastructure and deployment of more than 200 AI solutions across public services. A key component is the planned AI Factory, designed to develop and scale AI use cases, solutions and agents across government, with a target of hundreds of use cases and more than 1,000 AI agents supporting workflow automation, citizen services and policy analysis.
Beyond deploying an AI assistant, the initiative reflects Abu Dhabi’s strategy of integrating sovereign cloud, AI governance and cybersecurity into a unified digital government architecture.
