United Arab Emirates
5.5 points below what its income predicts · expected 48.4% at its GDP per capita
United Arab Emirates ranks 3 of 13 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan: 43.0% of its task time is at least partly delegable, above the world figure of 35.2% and 5.8 points below high-income countries.
| Indicator | United Arab Emirates | Rank in region | Highest in region | Region | High income | World | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegability | |||||||
| ADI: task time at least partly delegable (L2–L3) | 43.0 | 3 of 13 | Israel (54.3) | 33.2 | 48.7 | 35.2 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADI3: task time fully delegable (L3) | 2.9 | 4 of 13 | Malta (3.8) | 2.2 | 3.7 | 2.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADIs: expected share of working time delegable | 33.2 | 3 of 13 | Israel (40.5) | 28.3 | 37.4 | 29.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| Adoption | |||||||
| AI use per working-age adult (index) | 2.79 | 3 of 11 | Malta (3.94) | 1.41 | 2.80 | 1.53 | Anthropic Economic Index |
| Context | |||||||
| GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2021 international $) | 69,702 | 2 of 13 | Qatar (110,136) | 29,547 | 56,341 | 27,620 | World Bank WDI |
| Informal employment, % of total employment | 4.0 | 1 of 9 | United Arab Emirates (4.0) | 56.7 | 12.5 | 50.2 | ILOSTAT |
Region: the 13 countries of the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the atlas (World Bank regions). Delegability rows are employment-weighted means; adoption and context rows are simple means over countries with data. For informality, rank 1 is the lowest. With equal weights inside reported groups, the preregistered sensitivity check, United Arab Emirates’s ADI is 42.5%.
United Arab Emirates against the delegation divide
Each flag is a country; the dashed line is what GDP per capita alone predicts. The Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan keeps its colours, the rest is grey. United Arab Emirates is 5.5 points below what its income predicts.
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Who works in United Arab Emirates, and how delegable their tasks are
Professionals and technicians and associate professionals supply 48% of United Arab Emirates’s delegable task time while employing 27% of its workers.
Hover a block to read one group. Shade: the group’s ADI, light 10% to dark 85%.
| Major group | Employment, United Arab Emirates | World | ADI of group, United Arab Emirates | Points of ADI, United Arab Emirates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Managers | 9.5% | 3.9% | 83.6 | 7.9 |
| 4 · Clerical support workers | 5.9% | 5.0% | 81.4 | 4.8 |
| 2 · Professionals | 14.6% | 11.2% | 79.3 | 11.6 |
| 3 · Technicians and associate professionals | 12.1% | 6.7% | 75.3 | 9.1 |
| 5 · Service and sales workers | 12.8% | 17.8% | 29.1 | 3.7 |
| 8 · Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 8.7% | 7.6% | 13.5 | 1.2 |
| 6 · Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers | 1.2% | 21.9% | 18.5 | 0.2 |
| 7 · Craft and related trades workers | 17.0% | 10.8% | 18.7 | 3.2 |
| 9 · Elementary occupations | 18.4% | 15.2% | 7.2 | 1.3 |
Barriers, weighted by its jobs
The largest gap with the world is physical presence: 63% of task weight against 72% worldwide, a lighter brake on agents.
| Barrier | Share of task weight | ARE | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical presence | 63% | 72% | |
| Accountability | 29% | 26% | |
| Trust and care | 25% | 26% | |
| Access to systems | 58% | 59% |
Dashed tick: world, weighting the same tasks by world employment. A task can carry more than one barrier.
Delegable work and actual AI use
With 2.79× the world’s Claude use per working-age person, United Arab Emirates uses AI more than its delegable work alone would suggest (gap -0.51 standard deviations).
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Within its region
United Arab Emirates sits between Malta (50.7%) and Lebanon (39.6%); Israel leads the region at 54.3% and Afghanistan closes it at 22.9%.
| Country | ADI | % |
|---|---|---|
| Israel | 54.3 | |
| Malta | 50.7 | |
| United Arab Emirates | 43.0 | |
| Lebanon | 39.6 | |
| Qatar | 37.9 | |
| Iraq | 36.8 | |
| West Bank and Gaza | 36.4 | |
| Egypt | 36.2 | |
| Iran | 36.0 | |
| Jordan | 36.0 | |
| Tunisia | 31.6 | |
| Pakistan | 28.9 | |
| Afghanistan | 22.9 |
Dashed line: regional employment-weighted mean, 33.2%. World: 35.2%.
Espinal Maya, Cristian, and Santiago Jiménez Londoño. 2026. ADI v2026.1: Agent Delegability Index data, code and MCP server. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23552918. Record: United Arab Emirates (ARE), https://balamlabs.org/adi/countries/ARE
@misc{espinal2026adidata,
title = {{ADI} v2026.1: Agent Delegability Index data, code and {MCP} server},
author = {Espinal Maya, Cristian and Jim{\'e}nez Londo{\~n}o, Santiago},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
version = {v2026.1},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23552918},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23552918},
note = {Record: United Arab Emirates (ARE)}
}Static JSON: /adi/v2026.1/country/ARE.json