Dubai's RTA Sets 50% Agentic AI Target and AED300 Million Annual Value Goal

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority has approved an updated Artificial Intelligence Strategy that puts a number on the ambition: more than AED300 million, roughly $81.7 million, in added value every year. The centrepiece is a deadline. Half of the authority's operations and services are to sit inside an Agentic AI ecosystem within two and a half years.

Mattar Al Tayer, the RTA's Director-General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, launched the strategy. It covers 41 areas spread across the authority's agencies, sectors and departments, and is built on four foundational projects.

Al Tayer framed the plan as a response to leadership directives calling for faster AI adoption across government and for Dubai to hold its position as a global hub for smart solutions. The more consequential change, in his account, is in the type of system involved. Earlier deployments supported staff working through processes. The new ones are meant to analyse data, predict outcomes and carry a service through from start to finish. Al Tayer also described spending on AI as an investment in the emirate's future and in its ability to compete internationally.

Targets attached to the strategy

The authority has published a set of operational goals it expects the programme to reach:

• Traffic congestion reduced by 3 percent to 5 percent.
• Processing times for cases and complaints cut by 20 percent to 30 percent.
• Waiting times at Customer Happiness Centres down 14 percent to 16 percent.
• Service delivery times at those centres down 15 percent to 20 percent.
• Accidents involving newly licensed drivers down 10 percent to 20 percent.
• Procurement cycles shortened by 10 percent to 15 percent.
• Operational and engineering working hours reduced by 10 percent to 15 percent.

Rollout in waves

Delivery is sequenced. The first two waves take in 11 business areas and 40 AI products, and 11 of those products are already complete. The areas named for the opening waves are Planning and Business Development, Vehicle Licensing, Right-of-Way, Traffic, Contracts and Procurement, Customer Happiness, Bus Operations and Maintenance, Driver Licensing, Roads, Roads and Facilities Maintenance, and Human Resources and Development.

Planning for the first wave turned up more than 180 use cases and quick-win initiatives across the 11 business areas, involving 12 implementing departments. Of the 11 products launched so far, five sit in Planning and Business Development, five in Vehicle Licensing, and one in Right-of-Way. Ahmed Hashem Bahrozyan is chief executive of the Corporate Technology Support Services Sector, the unit working alongside the operational agencies on the build.

Some groundwork is already showing results. Use of Microsoft Copilot is above 90 percent among RTA users, and the authority puts the resulting saving in working time at 10 percent. The RTA has submitted 34 works for intellectual property registration and has secured approval for the Rail AI Chatbot. It also took an award at the AI World Series 2026. Eight strategic initiatives have been drawn up with technology partners including Huawei, Boston Consulting Group and Microsoft.

Mahboub becomes a transaction platform

Mahboub, the authority's smart chatbot, is being rebuilt as an end-to-end services platform. The Agentic AI version lets customers complete transactions across the RTA app, the website and WhatsApp. Five vehicle-licensing services and about 100 information services are available through it. Integration with UAE PASS and Dubai Pay means eligible vehicle-related transactions can be finished in under five minutes.

The RTA wants to double service-delivery speed, and to raise the share of services handled through the platform to 10 percent by the end of 2026 and 50 percent by the end of 2027. In October the authority said Mahboub was being prepared for a public rollout that would cover vehicle-registration renewal, fine payments, clearance certificates and renewal of number-plate reservations.

No Objection Certificates

The electronic No Objection Certificate system was developed by the Traffic and Roads Agency together with the Corporate Technology Support Services Sector. About 130,000 certificates are issued each year as things stand, and demand is climbing by roughly 11 percent.

The AI version is expected to make review procedures three times faster and to save more than 700,000 days a year. Customer satisfaction should rise by more than 5 percent, and revenues by 5 percent to 10 percent, according to the authority's projections.

Licensing document audits

A separate Agentic AI Auditor applies machine learning and optical character recognition to licensing documents, scanning for anomalies. Auditing is expected to run up to 21 times faster, and coverage widens from sample-based checks to 100 percent of the relevant documents. Across seven priority services, the tool should free more than 25,000 hours of manual work annually.

Bus network planning

The Agentic AI Bus Network Planner runs on roughly 20 AI agents. It reads performance indicators, identifies gaps in service, simulates alternatives and recommends network options. Analysis is expected to run five times faster, and the time needed to implement a service change falls from about 60 days to 48. The RTA is also targeting up to a 10 percent gain in bus on-time performance and a 3 percent to 7 percent lift in the network's cost-recovery ratio.

Outsourcing contracts

The Outsourcing Contracts Accountant reviews outsourcing agreements every month before payments clear, using Agentic AI to check attendance, outputs and compliance with contract terms.

Staff readiness

Workforce readiness is treated as a pillar rather than an afterthought. The RTA is widening access to intelligent tools, building specialised AI expertise and encouraging continuous learning, with separate training programmes meant to prepare employees for coming technologies. Some of that capability has to exist before the more ambitious agents go live, since the systems still need people who can read their output and intervene when it goes wrong. The authority says the updated strategy supports a mobility ecosystem better able to absorb Dubai's population, urban and economic growth.

That is where the numbers carry weight. Several of the targets — faster certificate reviews, full-document auditing, shorter procurement — land on back-office functions that rarely attract attention but set the pace for what residents meet at a counter or on a road. An agency issuing about 130,000 certificates a year, through a review process it expects to speed up three times over, is removing a ceiling on how much work can move through in a day.

The clearest early signal will be the share of services handled through Mahboub: 10 percent by the end of 2026, 50 percent by the end of 2027. That is the metric that tells Dubai whether the two-and-a-half-year deadline holds.