Inside Abu Dhabi’s AI Factory: The tech overhauling how citizens deal with government

Abu Dhabi is using artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of government services, with projects that once took months to move from concept to deployment now potentially being developed in a matter of weeks, according to a senior official at the Department of Government Enablement (DGE).

The emirate’s AI Factory, an AI team operating within DGE, is developing and scaling products designed both for government employees and people using government services, Faisal Alhawi, Director of AI Factory at the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi (DGE), told Arabian Business.

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“The AI Factory is essentially an AI team within the Department of Government Enablement, and we’re responsible for building and scaling AI products for government employees and as well as citizens of the Abu Dhabi emirate,” Alhawi said.

“So we build platforms and products that help people do their jobs better, faster, enjoy it while they’re doing it, eventually to serve citizens in a better way.”

The initiative reflects a shift in how Abu Dhabi is approaching AI adoption: rather than treating the technology solely as a back-office efficiency tool, the focus is also on how it can change the experience of residents and businesses interacting with government.

That raises a practical question for governments deploying AI at scale: with hundreds of possible processes and services that could be redesigned, where should they start?

According to Alhawi, the answer begins with the services that have the greatest impact on society.

“Essentially you’re the one deciding as the citizen. We look at the services that impact you the most, that will give you a better experience while you’re engaging with government, while we are operating with government as an individual or as a business,” he said.

“So we start by prioritising the services that touch the society most, high volume services, high impact services. And that’s where we start because we believe that the impact comes from enhancing your experience and then we operate from that.”

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From months to weeks

One of the most significant changes AI is bringing to government technology development, according to Alhawi, is speed.

Building a new digital product traditionally involves moving through several stages, from developing an initial concept and proof of concept to testing and eventually deploying a production-grade system.

That cycle could previously take several months.

“If you had asked me this question two years ago, I would say a typical average would take three months to six months. Three months to launch the first POC, a proof of concept or a pilot, and then six months to actually getting it to a production grade system,” Alhawi said.

“Today with AI, it’s literally a matter of days. So you are able to actually experiment much faster.”

The faster experimentation cycle does not necessarily mean every idea becomes a finished government service within days. Instead, it allows teams to build products, put them in front of users and learn from their response considerably earlier in the development process.

“You’re able to build products and put them in the hand of customers in a matter of days. That allows you to learn faster and understand how to get to production even faster,” Alhawi said.

“So I would say the scale has reduced from months to weeks at best.”

For Abu Dhabi, that compression could change more than the time required to build individual products. Faster experimentation gives government teams the ability to test whether an idea works in practice before committing to a longer development cycle.

The AI Factory’s approach also puts adoption and user experience at the centre of that process. Rather than starting simply with where AI can technically be deployed, Alhawi said the team prioritises high-volume and high-impact interactions where improvements would be most visible to residents and businesses.

As governments globally move to integrate generative AI and other emerging technologies into their operations, the question is increasingly shifting from whether AI can be used to where it can produce measurable improvements.

In Abu Dhabi, the AI Factory is focusing that effort on services that touch residents and businesses most frequently, while using AI to shorten the time between an idea, testing and deployment.