Written by Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.
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Available in DubaiA London-based speaker on AI, work and human judgement, in Dubai for conferences, board sessions and leadership offsites. Rahim has spoken in the Emirates, including at Dubai Arbitration Week, and travels to the region regularly.
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A feel for the room before you put me in front of yours.
Dubai wrote something into its 2019 AI ethics guidelines that most global frameworks still have not. It requires that systems informing significant decisions face quality-checking equivalent to those applied to a human employee taking that type of decision, and that organisations operating AI hold sufficient knowledge of the nature of the AI systems they use so as to be able to know their suitability for the use case. That is a competence requirement, sitting close to the argument in these keynotes.
Three things a Dubai audience should have before quoting it. The guidance is non-binding. It is seven years old. Its external audit provision is marked suspended, for want of any audit mechanism. And it is published in Arabic only, which is why it is so rarely cited.
The binding instrument in the Emirates sits elsewhere and covers narrower ground. DIFC Regulation 10 governs personal data processed by autonomous systems inside one free zone. Its reasoning reaches for the same analogy this research uses: where a system operates for its deployer, its position is substantially similar to that of an employee within the Deployer organization, so the deployer carries liability for its actions in the same way. It creates a named Autonomous Systems Officer.
The analogy is about liability rather than skill. It settles who is answerable. It does not ask whether that person could do the work being supervised, which is the question at who supervises work they cannot do.
The UAE publishes no official statistic on AI adoption or AI-related employment. Neither does Qatar. Saudi Arabia is the only Gulf state among those reviewed here that publishes one, at 33.1 per cent of establishments, through its General Authority for Statistics.
So every UAE adoption percentage in circulation, including the confident ones that reach conference stages, comes from a vendor. Useful to know before one goes on a slide. The full verified picture, with every document read at the issuing body’s own page, is at AI and work in the Gulf.
Rahim Hirji is a London-based keynote speaker on AI, work and human judgement, and the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026). He travels to Dubai for boards, executive teams, leadership offsites and conferences, and has spoken in the Emirates including at Dubai Arbitration Week. His argument is that AI comes for judgement before it comes for jobs.
No. All keynotes are delivered in English only. He travels from London to Dubai and delivers in person or online. This page carries an Arabic summary because the reader may read Arabic, not because the keynote is delivered in it.
That Dubai's 2019 guidance contains a competence requirement most frameworks lack, that DIFC Regulation 10 is the binding instrument and settles liability rather than skill, and that the UAE Charter states human oversight as a principle with no named duty-holder, no competence requirement and nothing on deskilling. Every document is read at the issuing body's own page.
Three to six months ahead for an in-person date in Dubai. Shorter is often possible for a virtual session, and sometimes in person where the diary is free and the talk already exists in the form you need. Ask earlier rather than later. There is one of him, he carries advisory clients and other commitments alongside the speaking, so not every date can be taken.
Fees are not published, and not withheld to create a negotiation. What they depend on is whether the talk already exists in the form you want or has to be built for your audience, and how much preparation the brief implies. Tell us the room, the date, the audience and what you need them to do differently, and you will get a number quickly. Schools, universities and charities are quoted differently. On travel there is one rule: outside London you book it and you pay it, because your rates are better than his and nobody is out of pocket waiting on a reimbursement. From London Heathrow to Dubai that falls in the five to eight hour band, so an economy plus fare, arrival the night before, and normally two nights in a standard room at or near the venue. A London booking carries no travel, accommodation or expenses at all.
When the decision has already been made and the session exists to announce it. When the audience has no authority over their own work, because the talk asks them to decide which repetitions are worth keeping. When the slot runs under twenty-five minutes, because the turn needs setting up. And when the session follows a vendor pitch, since order matters more than programmes usually assume. Where the conditions are wrong we will say so, and sometimes that means reshaping the session. Occasionally it means recommending somebody else.
رحيم هرجي مؤلف ومتحدث رئيسي مقيم في لندن، يتناول الذكاء الاصطناعي والعمل والحكم البشري. مؤلف كتاب SuperSkills الصادر عن دار Kogan Page عام 2026، ومؤسس شركة The SuperSkills Intelligence Company.
حجته: الذكاء الاصطناعي يطال حكمك قبل أن يطال وظيفتك. معظم المؤسسات تنجرف إلى تبنّي الذكاء الاصطناعي عبر مئات القرارات الصغيرة التي لم يتّخذها أحد بوضوح، بدل أن تُقرّر مسبقاً أين يجب أن يبقى الحكم البشري.
يقدّم محاضرات لمجالس الإدارة وفرق القيادة والمؤتمرات، مدّتها من 40 إلى 90 دقيقة، حضورياً أو عبر الإنترنت. متاح للسفر إلى دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة.
ملاحظة مهمة: يقدّم رحيم جميع محاضراته باللغة الإنجليزية فقط.
Written by Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.
Tell me the room, the date and the shift you need. A reply within 24 hours.
Part of speaking across the Gulf. See also Abu Dhabi and Doha. Browse every topic, audience and region. دليل المتحدثين بالعربية.
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