ICYMI: The Inaugural 'Governance of Emerging Technologies Summit' Revives the Discourse on Ethical and Responsible AI Development
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur Middle East, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Ethics in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), cross-border data governance, cybersecurity resilience, and post-quantum security were among the major topics of conversation during the inaugural Governance of Emerging Technologies Summit (GETS 2025), which was held in Abu Dhabi from May 5-6, 2025.
Launched under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court, the event was organized by the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) in strategic partnership with the UAE Public Prosecution.
The first-of-its-kind regional convention brought together 1,000 participants from more than 20 countries —including policymakers, legal experts, technologists, and youth leaders— with an aim to clearly define the frameworks for responsible governance of advanced technologies. Noteworthy dignitaries among the many high-level attendees at GETS 2025 included the Attorney General of Qatar, the Attorney General of Egypt, and the Deputy Attorney General of Oman.
The two-day event put a spotlight on the UAE's position as a leading force in shaping responsible, inclusive, and forward-looking technology governance.
That sentiment was perhpas most evident during a keynote speech from Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications. While addressing the audience, Olama underscored the UAE's early investment in building a national AI ecosystem that prioritises flexibility, responsibility, and competitiveness. "Guided by visionary leadership, the UAE recognised early on the importance of artificial intelligence and the need to shape its future through bold action and responsible governance," he said. "We have mobilised national capabilities, enacted forward-looking regulatory frameworks, and launched pioneering initiatives to stay ahead of rapid transformations and enhance our global competitiveness. The UAE's approach is rooted in flexibility, global collaboration, and the development of technologies that empower societies and drive responsible innovation. This summit reflects our national commitment, providing a global platform to advance policy dialogue and build a balanced international framework for governing advanced technologies."
Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications at GETS 2025. Image source: GETS
Olama's emphasise on innovating responsibly had earlier been highlighted by UAE Attorney General Chancellor Dr. Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, who decalred that "innovation without ethics is incomplete," during his keynote address. "And the future of emerging technologies must be guided not only by advancement, but by a higher purpose—serving humanity and society," he added.
Dr. Al Shamsi's words hold added gravitas in the added knowledge that, during the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2025 in Davos earlier this year, the UAE government and WEF jointly launched the Global Regulatory Innovation Platform (GRIP)- a platform that aims to understand, evaluate, and design human-centered legislation that serves communities in an era of rapid technological and digital advancements.
During a high-level dialogue, Faisal Al Bannai, Advisor to the UAE President for Strategic Research and Advanced Technology and Secretary-General of ATRC, reiterated this purpose-driven approach towards innovation by stating that, "Tech organisations must take some responsibility for the technologies they release. It cannot be that they issue it and let society deal with the consequences. This requires strong, ongoing collaboration between technology players and regulators."
Backing up this conversation was Maryam bint Ahmed Al Hammadi, Minister of State and Secretary General of the UAE Cabinet, who also shed light on the UAE's long-term vision for governance. "Embedding responsible technology governance into national policy is not a short-term ambition," Al Hammadi declared. "It is part of a broader commitment to shaping agile institutions, forward-looking legislation, and resilient societies capable of navigating the complexities of the digital age."
Maryam bint Ahmed Al Hammadi, Minister of State and Secretary General of the UAE Cabinet at GETS 2025. Image source: GETS
Indeed, the notion that the right governance policies will eventually trickle into other entities in the UAE's wider business landscape was vividly pointed out by Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, Minister of Education, when she spoke about the critical role of AI in preparing future generations. During a panel discussion —which saw Al Amiri being joined by experts from fMohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, Abundance Studio, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lameen Abdul-Malik— she noted that fundamental technological transformations, particularly within AI, require accelerated efforts to prepare students and empower them with the necessary tools to contribute to the advancement of society. This, she added, also requires establishing ethical frameworks related to these technologies, enabling them to maximize their benefits and applications in daily life. "Integrating AI concepts and tools into academic curriculum represents a strategic investment in building more resilient societies prepared for the demands of the future," Al Amiri said, adding that that the education system in the UAE has worked to incorporate AI into its curricula, in a bid to stay future ready while also staying committed to anticipating the global education shifts and trends.
Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, UAE Minister of Education at GETS 2025. Image source: GETS
Similar sector-specific sessions delved into the role of AI in healthcare, civil defence, education, creative industries, and manufacturing. During one such session, Dr Amin Hussain Al Amiri, Assistant Undersecretary of the Health Regulations Sector at the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP), along with representatives from NMC Healthcare and the Al Dhafra Youth Council, examined how governance frameworks must keep pace with the deployment of AI in clinical environments to ensure data protection and improved patient outcomes. In a separate session, leaders from Honeywell, BP, AIQ, and Coders Launchpad discussed the industrial transformation underway through smart manufacturing, and the safeguards needed to ensure responsible and secure deployment.
Separately, in a key session titled "From Vision to Empowerment: The Roadmap to Justice 2030", Chancellor Salem Ali Al Zaabi, Head of Public Prosecution at the Office of the UAE Attorney General, presented the UAE Public Prosecution's Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025–2030. The strategy aims to enhance efficiency in the justice system, support decision-makers, and improve service quality—while upholding the highest ethical and legal standards.
Insights on creative sector governance were also shared at GETS 2025, as speakers from the National Library and Archives, Byteplus, and Lune Technologies addressed the risks and rights associated with generative AI and digital content ownership.
With global reccomendations being shared over the course of the two days, the Summit also witnessed calls for a global charter on human-AI interaction that integrates ethics and equity into innovation from the outset, discourse on the need to empower youth in shaping governance, and multiple talks on prioritising digital trust and cybersecurity as national imperatives. Notable sessions included those by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), co-founder of Binance and Giggle Academy, who explored how regulatory systems can evolve to meet the demands of a decentralized Web3 landscape; and Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO of the Technology Innovation Institute, who highlighted the dual imperative of innovation and resilience in an era shaped by AI and quantum disruption.
GETS 2025 also brought post-quantum readiness and next-generation encryption to the forefront, with experts pushing for the pivotal need for early data audits, encryption upgrades, and alignment with post-quantum standards. The Summit also spotlighted digital inclusion and linguistic equality in AI, advocating for increased investment in local datasets, digital literacy, and AI accessibility to bridge global and language divides. Regional and global experts also explored the cyberrisks that are innate to emerging technologies and emphasized the need for coordinated action among governments, technology developers, and society to build a fairer, more secure digital future.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Entrepreneur
31 minutes ago
- Entrepreneur
Using AI in Customer Service? Don't Make These 4 Mistakes
AI is revolutionizing customer service in 2025, offering speed, personalization and efficiency. But to avoid frustrating users, businesses must ensure the following things. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. AI is omnipresent in 2025 in all areas of the business sphere, including customer service. And for good reason. Used right, AI can provide invaluable insights into your customers' behaviors and preferences, boost the efficiency of your customer service team and increase overall satisfaction. Between dynamic personalization, streamlined purchase processes and predictive customer support, many small businesses are leveraging AI to level the playing field and provide enterprise-grade customer service. However, despite AI's massive potential, there are several potential pitfalls when using AI in customer service. At worst, AI can scare off customers or generate frustration, rather than helping to streamline processes. Here are the four most common mistakes — and how to avoid them. Related: How Small Businesses Can Leverage AI Without Breaking the Bank 1. Frustrating generic chatbots To start with, chatbots can be a great asset to your team members and customers alike. They can speedily handle routine queries, free up your agents' capacities, respond to customers even outside regular business hours and reduce wait times. However, to be effective, chatbots need to be well-trained and personalized. Unfortunately, many companies — in a rush to stay ahead in the AI race — deployed chatbots that ask too many questions, give generic answers and fail to solve queries. In one hilarious example, NYC's MyCity chatbot kept giving wrong answers even six months post-deployment and after $600,000 in investments, misinforming users about legal requirements for business owners and even basic facts such as the minimum wage. Overall, 80% of people reported that interactions with chatbots have increased their frustration rather than leading to quicker solutions to the issues they were facing. To avoid this, it's crucial that chatbots are trained well on company-internal data. Ideally, they should be able to leverage customer-specific data across a number of different channels in order to provide personalized, efficient support to every person who reaches out. 2. Unaccessible siloed data On that note, another common pitfall to avoid when implementing AI in customer service is data siloing. One of AI's greatest strengths is its capacity to process huge amounts of data and unearth patterns and trends, condensed into actionable insights. These insights can then be leveraged for personalization and targeted strategy adjustments. However, that's only possible if AI actually has access to all the necessary data elements — and that is a challenge many small businesses are currently facing. In fact, a recent study by Nextiva, a market leader in customer experience software solutions, found that among company leadership, data siloing was identified as one of the most common barriers to AI implementation. In the study, 39% of respondents agreed that they "struggled with accessibility, aggregation, integration and structure of real-time and historical data." To avoid this limitation, it's essential to audit data storage and integration as soon as you start planning your AI implementation strategy. Making sure from the start that the systems you are considering integrate well — or that bridge solutions are at least available — will avoid unnecessary siloing and frustration down the line. Related: AI Can Give You New Insights About Your Customers for Cheap. Here's How to Make It Work for You. 3. Going overboard on hyper-personalization and automation On the other end of the spectrum are businesses that go overboard in their enthusiasm for AI, to a degree that can appear off-putting to many customers. This includes hyper-personalization and automation processes. While personalization is a key advantage of AI and can boost the efficiency of customer service agents and the satisfaction of the people they interact with, you don't want to appear omniscient either. Having the impression that a company knows everything about them before they even talk to you is seen as acutely creepy by many customers. Salesbots, in particular, often trigger the uncanny valley effect, or scare off potential customers by leveraging information they don't feel they ought to have access to. To steer clear of this particular pitfall, it's essential to carefully calibrate the level of personalisation you implement and weigh its potential benefits in boosting conversions against customers' perception of intrusiveness. 4. Forgetting human escalation options Finally, a widespread mistake small businesses make in leveraging AI for customer service is to neglect human escalation options, especially in customer support. No matter what your AI can do, it's always necessary to offer customers the option to talk to a human agent instead. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer facing an urgent problem than being stuck in an ineffective conversation loop with a chatbot or a virtual phone agent when an actual person would clearly help them reach a solution far more efficiently. Outside business hours, when AI is the only one holding down the fort, it's often enough to offer customers the option to leave a message and assure them you will contact them as soon as possible. Other than that, though, you need to give people the option of a human lifeline to help put out an urgent fire. Related: Does AI Deserve All the Hype? Here's How You Can Actually Use AI in Your Business Conclusion In 2025, AI is an incredible asset that small businesses can leverage to elevate their customer service. It is, however, not a panacea. To effectively harness the potential of AI and avoid common pitfalls, it's necessary to carefully plan and train the systems you're deploying, exercise discretion with respect to personalization and implement a human failsafe option. By sticking to these tenets, though, you'll be able to make the most of the opportunities AI has to offer for small businesses in customer service and increase your overall customer satisfaction.
Entrepreneur
34 minutes ago
- Entrepreneur
Build a Career Safety Net That Runs Itself with This $39 Tool
Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you'll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners. If you're running a business, leading a team, or wearing multiple hats as a founder, you already know time is your most valuable asset. So when it comes to hiring—or even pivoting into a new opportunity—LoopCV offers the automation edge you didn't know you needed. Right now, you can secure lifetime access to LoopCV Premium for just $39 (regularly $599). LoopCV is an AI-powered job automation tool that is designed to take the exhausting manual grind out of the job search. Whether you're a business owner looking for fractional work, a founder exploring consulting gigs, or a team leader who is coaching laid-off employees, LoopCV can handle the repetitive outreach for you. Upload your résumé, define your ideal roles and target locations, and LoopCV will automatically apply to jobs daily, send personalized emails to recruiters, and track your results with real-time performance data. You can even A/B test different résumés to see what resonates best in your industry. And it's not just for job seekers. Small-business owners and startup founders can also use LoopCV to scout freelance talent, build partnerships, or explore new verticals—all without committing hours to job boards. Need a project-based marketing consultant or a part-time developer? Set up a loop targeting those roles, and let LoopCV surface the candidates or opportunities. For entrepreneurs, this tool can help you generate project leads, land speaking opportunities, or even explore strategic hires with minimal lift. It integrates with over 30 job boards, including LinkedIn, Indeed, and USAJobs, so you're always in the loop. Time is money. Let LoopCV hustle for you in the background while you stay focused on growing your business. Get lifetime access to LoopCV Premium while it's on sale for just $39 (regularly $599) for a limited time. LoopCV Premium Plan: Lifetime Subscription See Deal StackSocial prices subject to change.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Heart and soul of FedEx' Fred Smith dies
FedEx founder Fred Smith, one of the most influential figures in the development of modern logistics, died on Saturday, the company has
