The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to use AI for drafting and reviewing federal and local laws.

This initiative represents a significant change in the UAE’s legislative processes.

The newly established Regulatory Intelligence Office will oversee this initiative, which aims to expedite law creation.

🔗 Source: The Telegraph

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ UAE leads global shift from regulating AI to governing with AI

While most nations are still developing frameworks to regulate AI, the UAE is pioneering the use of AI to create regulations themselves, representing a fundamental shift in governance approach.

At least 69 countries have proposed over 1,000 AI-related policy initiatives globally, but these primarily focus on how to control AI rather than empower it to draft legislation 1.

The EU’s AI Act classifies systems by risk levels and imposes restrictions on high-risk applications 2, while the UAE is actively putting AI at the center of its legislative process.

This move positions the UAE as an experimental testbed for AI governance at a time when countries like the US, UK, and China are still debating basic regulatory frameworks for the technology itself 3.

What makes this particularly significant is that the UAE isn’t just implementing isolated AI tools but systematically redesigning its entire legislative infrastructure, a far more comprehensive approach than seen anywhere else globally.

2️⃣ Multilingual legal accessibility addresses UAE’s unique demographic challenge

The UAE’s AI law initiative directly addresses a distinct demographic reality: only 10% of the population is local, with residents representing approximately 200 nationalities.

Traditional legal systems often struggle with language barriers, but AI can facilitate multilingual legal drafting that makes laws more accessible to diverse populations, potentially improving compliance and reducing misunderstandings.

This approach tackles a practical challenge in UAE governance: communicating complex regulations clearly to a population where most residents aren’t native Arabic speakers.

Legal AI systems have already demonstrated capabilities in enhancing accessibility by automating document review and improving accuracy in legal research 4, suggesting the UAE may leverage these capacities at scale.