Page 33 - Red Hat PR REPORT - OCTOBER 2025

Press release

Red Hat Survey: UAE Organisations Prepare for Widespread AI Adoption

and Upskilling

• 71% of UAE businesses agree the UAE is a global AI powerhouse
• UAE organisations plan to boost AI investment by nearly a third by 2026 on average
(31%), but over 90% of respondents say their organisation is not yet delivering customer

value from AI
• 76% agree there is an urgent AI skills gap, with agentic AI skills most in demand (57%)
• 70% say that they are experiencing a “shadow AI” problem
• 98% of respondents agree they experience barriers in adopting AI technologies.
• Respondents unanimously agreed that open source is crucial to cost optimisation and
virtualisation.

12 October, 2025 - Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today
announced new survey results highlighting the prominence of AI for UAE organisations’ IT
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strategies . The findings reveal UAE organisations anticipate boosting AI investment by an average
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of 31% by 2026
When asked about their organisation's IT strategy for the next 18 months, AI is one of the top-
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ranked priorities among 82% of respondents, along with security (83 %), followed by cost
optimisation (81% ), and sovereignty (76% ).
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However, 96% of organisations surveyed report they are not yet driving customer value from their
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AI investments.

To overcome these challenges and help turn ambitions to reality, UAE organisations are embracing
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open source across all areas of IT strategy. The survey shows that 100% of UAE IT leaders view
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open source as vital for cost optimisation , post-quantum cryptography , and virtualisation .
AI a work in progress
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One of the highest AI priority of respondents for the next 18 months (83% ) is agentic AI, AI
systems that operate with high degrees of autonomy and can execute complex, multi-step tasks
with limited human intervention. Enabling broad employee adoption and operationalising AI are
also ranked high on the priority to-do list, with 86% and 85% agreeing respectively.
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Retaining and developing the right talent remains a challenge, with AI skills still ranking among the
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most urgent gaps, as cited by 76% of respondents. Within AI specifically, the talent shortage
mirrors the target priorities for UAE IT and AI leaders: connecting AI to enterprise data cited by