Corporate governance is the pointy end of the AI spear in Abu Dhabi: Two of the UAE capital’s most prominent firms are moving faster than the majority of the Fortune 100 in implementing AI into decision-making at the highest levels.
Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala increasingly relies on AI to screen deals, make investment decisions, monitor assets, and, ultimately, sell its own tech products. The $330 billion firm has already sold a white-labeled AI corporate governance monitor to three other companies, Mubadala’s Head of AI Enablement Aidan Millar told Semafor’s Mohammed Sergie onstage at Abu Dhabi Finance Week this month. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi’s largest listed firm, IHC, has similarly developed a board-monitoring tool with G42 to analyze discussions in real time.
Pippa Begg, CEO of London software and advisory firm Board Intelligence, puts the embrace of AI down to overall nimbleness and relative youth, compared to the US and Europe, where data regulations particularly hamper boards. “Here, you’ve got appetite, and then you get execution straight away,” she told Semafor.
Board enthusiasm is not the norm: A global survey by McKinsey found that while 88% of organizations now use AI in at least one function, 39% of Fortune 100 companies haven’t introduced board-level AI oversight.