UAE Banks Are Accelerating AI: What Businesses Should Do Next

In early 2025, Gulf countries invested more than $30 billion in artificial intelligence projects.

As a result, UAE banks are getting smarter. That should comfort you and make you a little more alert.

Research is showing that Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and Mashreq are among the most AI-advanced banks in the GCC and the wider Middle East and Africa region. The ranking comes from the 2026 Evident AI Index for Banks. Emirates NBD took the top position, First Abu Dhabi Bank ranked third, and Mashreq came in tenth.

The other banks are Standard Bank Group, NEDBank Group, FirstRand, Capitec Bank, Absa Group, Bank Leumi le-Israel, and Al Rajhi.

That is not a small bragging point. The index looked at 25 large banks and judged them across talent, innovation, leadership, and transparency around responsible AI. In plain English, it was not only asking, “Does this bank use AI?” It was asking if the bank has the people, systems, senior attention, and public accountability to use it properly.

That matters because customers do not experience banking as a strategy deck. They experience it while opening an account before a visa deadline, waiting for a card replacement, or checking why a transaction was blocked. A bank’s technology is judged in small, irritating moments.

AI is now staying behind more of those moments.

Our research points to UAE banks using AI in smart onboarding, customer engagement platforms, and stronger risk analytics. These are the parts of banking that used to feel painfully slow or strangely manual. Anyone who has uploaded the same Emirates ID twice, or been asked for “one more document” after already sending five, knows the feeling.

Done well, AI can read patterns faster, flag missing information earlier, and spot suspicious activity before a customer loses money. Cybersecurity is becoming one of the clearest reasons banks are spending on AI, especially as onboarding, payments, and lending move deeper into digital channels.

There is also a contradiction in the UAE banking story. On one hand, the country is pushing hard into AI, digital identity, app-based services, and instant payments. On the other hand, cheques have not disappeared from everyday business life. Many SMEs still deal with rent cheques, supplier payments, security cheques, and old-school paperwork that refuses to die quietly.

That is where digital discipline meets paper discipline. If your business still uses cheques, proper cheque printing is not a boring back-office detail. It reduces errors, keeps payment records cleaner, and makes a traditional payment method feel less risky. Banks may be racing ahead with AI, but a misprinted cheque can still waste an afternoon.

For UAE customers, the message is not that banks are becoming futuristic. That word gets thrown around too easily. The real point is simpler: banks are becoming more decision-heavy, more automated, and more data-aware.

You will feel it in faster approvals, sharper fraud checks, more personalised offers, and fewer branch visits. You may also feel it in decisions that are harder to question.

Emirates NBD, FAB, and Mashreq ranking highly should make UAE residents feel that local banks are not behind the curve. In some areas, they are helping set it. But customers should stay awake, too. Ask why a request was rejected. Read alerts properly. Keep records. Do not assume the app knows everything.