Dubai Government to Define Where Humans Must Stay in Charge as Agentic AI Reshapes Public Sector Work

Dubai Is Asking the Question Every Government Needs to Answer: Where Do Humans Stay in Charge?

Dubai's government is preparing to address one of the most consequential questions facing public sector institutions in 2026: as agentic artificial intelligence systems become capable of acting across workflows, influencing hiring decisions, and managing government operations, which decisions must legally, ethically, and institutionally remain under human authority?

The Dubai Government Human Resources Department will host DGHR Multaqa 2026 under the theme "HR in the Agentic Age", convening government leaders, policymakers, technology experts and human capital executives to examine the implications of agentic AI for public sector workforce design, performance management, and institutional accountability. The forum's working theme, "Agents at Work. Humans in Charge. Policy as Guide," reflects a government that is approaching AI deployment not as a technology implementation exercise but as a governance challenge.

What Agentic AI Actually Changes in Government

The shift from AI as a support tool to AI as an agent capable of acting independently across workflows is a meaningful one, particularly in a public sector context. In enterprise environments, an underperforming AI system affects a business. In government, it affects citizens, public services, and institutional trust.

DGHR's forum is designed to work through what that shift means in practice. Discussions will cover workforce transformation and job redesign, upskilling and employee readiness, responsible AI governance frameworks, accessibility and inclusion in AI-enabled workplaces, and the future capabilities required for government work in the agentic era.

Abdullah Ali bin Zayed Al Falasi, Director General of DGHR, set the tone for the forum's approach:

"Technology can enhance the way we work, but human judgement, accountability and public value must remain at the centre of decision-making. Through this forum, we aim to support government entities in understanding this transformation, preparing their people, strengthening future capabilities and ensuring the responsible adoption of AI in the workplace."

The Broader UAE Context

The DGHR forum sits within a wider pattern of UAE government institutions moving from AI policy to AI practice. The country has already committed to accelerating AI readiness across the public sector, building digital government infrastructure, and developing future-ready capabilities as core national objectives. What distinguishes the DGHR forum is its focus on the human side of that transition, specifically how government HR functions manage the period of change as AI systems take on work previously performed by people.

This is not a peripheral concern. G42, the UAE's most prominent enterprise AI investor, has already begun formally integrating AI agents into workforce roles, complete with application processes, probationary periods and performance reviews. If the country's leading technology organisations are treating AI agents as workforce participants, it follows that government HR policy needs to define how those agents are governed, held accountable, and kept from overstepping into areas where human authority is non-negotiable.

What Comes Out of Rome and Dubai This Week

The DGHR forum arrives in the same week that the FII Institute's Rome summit delivered a similar message from an investment and infrastructure angle: sovereignty in the AI era requires owning the decisions that matter, not just the technology. For Dubai and the broader GCC, that principle applies as much to public sector workforce governance as it does to compute infrastructure. The governments that work out where humans stay in charge, and build policy around that answer, will be the ones that can deploy agentic AI at scale without losing public trust in the process.

The DGHR Multaqa 2026 forum represents exactly that kind of working-through. The outcome, whatever frameworks and commitments it produces, will likely serve as a reference point for other Gulf governments grappling with the same transition.