The UAE has ranked first globally for citizen satisfaction with government digital services, with 89 per cent of respondents rating them highly, according to Boston Consulting Group’s sixth annual Digital Government Citizen Survey.
The report, which covered 44 countries, was launched at AI Everything Abu Dhabi.
The UAE also led globally in government digital service usage, at 53 per cent. BCG found that more than three-quarters of UAE respondents said their most recent online government transaction was better than a typical private-sector interaction, a gap that puts the country well ahead of most peers.
AI adoption is now becoming the defining variable. Some 82 per cent of UAE respondents reported using AI weekly, and 53 per cent said they believe its benefits outweigh the risks in a government context, compared with 49 per cent across the GCC and 36 per cent globally.
That optimism, though, is softening: overall GCC optimism about AI in government has fallen 21 per cent since 2024, a shift BCG attributes to growing familiarity with the technology’s limitations as much as its strengths.
“The UAE’s strong digital government experience reflects years of investment in making public services more accessible, seamless, and responsive to citizens’ needs. As AI becomes more embedded in public services, governments have an opportunity to build on this foundation with more AI-enabled experiences and process re-engineering to continue focusing on quality and convenience. This next phase will be about deploying AI where it creates clear value, while maintaining human expertise for more complex citizen needs,” Rami Mourtada, Partner & Director, Digital Transformation, BCG said in a statement.
The survey shows GCC residents are the most AI-receptive of any region surveyed, with 79 per cent open to AI-centered government interactions against a global average of 66 per cent.
The applications with the broadest acceptance are practical ones: 82 per cent are comfortable with AI providing round-the-clock access to services, 81 per cent with AI supporting government customer-service agents, and 79 per cent with AI detecting fraud and following up automatically.
Notably, three of the four most strongly supported applications are agentic, meaning they involve AI taking actions on behalf of citizens rather than simply providing information.
Preference for a hybrid model, AI handling simpler tasks while humans manage complex ones, has risen nine percentage points to 50 per cent over the past two years. Only around 4 per cent of GCC respondents say they want no AI involvement at all, compared with nearly one in ten globally.
The GCC remained the only region in the survey where a majority rated government digital services above those of the private sector, at 72 per cent. That lead is narrowing, however. The net share of GCC respondents placing government above private-sector services fell from 75 per cent in 2024 to 69 per cent in 2026.
BCG’s report flags AI literacy as a pressure point. GCC respondents with expert-level AI knowledge are around four times more likely than those with no AI experience to believe its benefits outweigh the risks in government settings. Concerns about job loss (33 per cent) and accuracy (28 per cent) top citizens’ list of reservations.
“The GCC has a strong opportunity to translate its digital leadership into the next generation of AI-enabled government services. As citizens become more familiar with AI, building literacy and trust will be critical to sustained adoption. The opportunity is to move forward with AI in ways that reflect how citizens want to engage, expanding automation and agentic capabilities where they create value, while
retaining human judgment and embedding responsible safeguards where they matter most,” Dr. Lars Littig, Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG.
BCG’s recommendations to GCC governments include redesigning core services around AI from the ground up rather than layering it onto existing processes, investing in visible governance and testing frameworks, and actively expanding agentic applications that can complete transactions on citizens’ behalf.
