Category: Connected City

What if your government agency had an employee who never slept, never called in sick, and could handle thousands of resident questions at the same time? That's not a fantasy. That's exactly what the UAE just built. Meet Rashid — the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism's first AI virtual employee. He's part of a growing digital workforce that includes DEWA's "Rammas," who has already answered over 12 million customer inquiries. And this is just the beginning. On April 23, 2026, the UAE announced a plan to deploy Agentic AI across 50% of its federal government operations within two years — backed by a commitment to train 80,000 government employees to work alongside it. The global AI virtual assistant market is on track to hit $124.9 billion by 2034. The technology is here. The strategy is real. The only question left is whether U.S. government leaders are ready to lead.