An article by Abdullah Al Jaafari, CEO and Founder of Resquad AI

In May, Dubai did something few governments do: it set a deadline. Within two years, the Crown Prince said, the emirate's private sector should embrace agentic AI, software that can plan, execute and act with limited human intervention.

Dubai Chambers has since established an executive committee, along with training programmes, incubators and funding initiatives, to accelerate adoption. By any measure, it is one of the region's most ambitious technology transformation programmes.

Most commentary has treated the initiative as a technology story. It is equally, if not more, a talent story.

An autonomous AI agent is not a product that can simply be purchased and switched on. It must be designed, integrated into existing systems and governed carefully once it begins making decisions that were previously reserved for people.

Whether an AI agent approves payments, reorders inventory or responds to customers, someone must define the boundaries of its authority, determine when decisions should be escalated and remain accountable when mistakes occur.

That responsibility falls to experienced engineers and AI architects. Yet these are among the hardest profiles to hire across the region, particularly as demand for advanced AI skills accelerates. LinkedIn's Future of Recruiting in MENA 2025 found that more than half of talent acquisition professionals struggle to find candidates with the technical skills they need, even as organisations increasingly prioritise AI capabilities and skills-based hiring.

This is the constraint that cannot be solved overnight.

Dubai's programme runs for just twenty-four months. Building technical literacy across the workforce is achievable within that timeframe. Developing senior engineers capable of designing, deploying and governing production-grade agentic systems is considerably harder.

Training programmes, incubators and funding all play an essential role. They will expand awareness, encourage experimentation and help organisations understand where AI can deliver value.

What they cannot do in two years is produce large numbers of experienced AI architects.

In fact, greater awareness may initially intensify demand. As more executives recognise the opportunities offered by agentic AI, more organisations will compete for a relatively limited pool of experienced technical talent.

Education broadens the pipeline. It does not immediately increase the number of highly experienced engineers available to lead complex deployments.

Timing therefore becomes a competitive advantage.

Companies under pressure to meet ambitious AI goals may be tempted to procure technology first and build teams later. In practice, the opposite sequence is often more effective.

Organisations that recruit experienced technical leaders early give them time to evaluate platforms, establish governance frameworks, integrate systems and learn from inevitable setbacks before deployment at scale.

Those that delay hiring until much later in the transition will have considerably less room to experiment or course-correct.

For many businesses, this challenge extends beyond national borders.

The engineers capable of building production-grade AI systems may be based in Europe, Asia or elsewhere in the Middle East. While remote collaboration has become increasingly common, international hiring still requires navigating contracts, payroll, immigration and compliance processes that often move more slowly than technological change itself.

Competition is also unlikely to remain confined to Dubai. Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and other Gulf markets are investing heavily in AI infrastructure, research and digital transformation, creating simultaneous demand for many of the same specialist skills.

The result is a regional competition for talent rather than a local hiring challenge.

None of this diminishes Dubai's ambition. On the contrary, the strategy recognises that AI will be central to future economic competitiveness.

But technology alone will not determine whether that ambition succeeds.

The organisations that gain the greatest advantage over the next two years are unlikely to be those that purchase the largest number of AI tools. They will be those that invest early in the people capable of designing, governing and continuously improving the systems behind them.

Agentic AI may become increasingly autonomous, but its success will continue to depend on human expertise. In the race to build an AI-powered economy, engineers remain the critical bottleneck.