UAE GenAI enrollments surge 344% YoY, leading MENA in AI readiness per Coursera Global Skills Report 2025
The UAE is rapidly expanding its AI capabilities, with Generative AI enrollments surging 344% year over year—well above the regional MENA average of 128% and the global average of 195%. This trend emerges from Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2025, which analyzes preferences and skills development across more than 100 countries and serves a platform with over 170 million learners worldwide. The findings underscore a deliberate national move toward a knowledge-based economy, anchored by Emirati talent and strategic policy initiatives, including bold investments in infrastructure and education focused on future-ready skills such as technology literacy, AI, and big data.
Read-UAE sits among the top 10 nations in the world for AI firms per capita, signaling a robust ecosystem capable of nurturing AI-driven entrepreneurship and scalable innovation. Within this broader context, the UAE is elevating its workforce development agenda. A striking 87% of employers in the country prioritize technology literacy, AI, and big data skills as essential for the modern workspace. In tandem, the labor force’s online learning participation remains notable, with 13% actively engaging in digital upskilling. This combination reflects a country intent on closing skill gaps through online education and targeted professional development, aligning with broader national visions and economic diversification goals.
The ongoing transformation driven by AI is reflected in professional credentialing trends. Enrollments in professional certificates rose by 41% overall, with a notable 14% uptick in cybersecurity courses, illustrating a growing demand for job-relevant, tech-focused qualifications across diverse sectors. The Global Skills Report 2025 provides a lens into skill trends and learner behavior across more than 100 countries, highlighting how the UAE’s emphasis on upskilling is part of a broader, data-driven strategy to future-proof the workforce and reinforce competitiveness in a globally connected economy.
This heightened interest in GenAI enrollments aligns with the UAE’s broader agenda to build a knowledge-based economy powered by local talent, dovetailing with the nation’s national development framework. The government’s vision—articulated in the We the UAE 2031 plan—frames AI and digital skills as central to economic growth, innovation, and resilience. By expanding access to GenAI learning and related competencies, the UAE seeks to cultivate a highly skilled labor pool capable of advancing innovation, attracting high-value industries, and sustaining long-term productivity in the non-oil sectors.
AI Maturity Index: UAE’s Regional Leadership and National Initiatives
A novel feature introduced in this year’s Global Skills Report is the AI Maturity Index, which assesses national readiness for AI by integrating learner engagement metrics with macroeconomic and policy indicators drawn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The UAE’s performance on this index places it at the forefront within the Arab world, ranking first regionally and 32nd globally among 109 countries assessed. This standing is not incidental; it is the outcome of a coherent policy architecture and sustained investments designed to embed AI into the fabric of the economy and society.
The UAE’s top-tier position on the AI Maturity Index is underpinned by deliberate national initiatives that translate AI readiness into tangible capabilities. Among these, the planned 5GW AI Campus stands out as a cornerstone of the country’s strategy to scale AI research, development, and deployment. Equally important is the integration of AI into public school curricula, ensuring that younger generations gain familiarity and proficiency with AI concepts early in their education. These efforts operate within the broader framework of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031, which explicitly aims to make AI a key driver of the economy and to contribute more than 20% of non-oil GDP by 2031.
Kais Zribi, General Manager for the Middle East and Africa at Coursera, emphasized the UAE’s momentum, noting that the country is rapidly scaling both AI learning and the accompanying infrastructure to drive workforce transformation and regional innovation. He highlighted how the UAE’s outstanding performance on the AI Maturity Index, together with strong scores in overall skills proficiency, illustrates the country’s growing ability to close skill gaps, nurture future talent, and lead in AI readiness. Taken together, these observations point to a robust alignment between policy ambitions, educational delivery, and the needs of a digital economy that relies on AI-enabled productivity and innovation.
Read-UAE and the AI Ecosystem: Clusters, Firms, and Digital Upskilling
The UAE’s AI landscape is reinforced by Read-UAE’s placement among the top 10 nations with the most AI firms per capita. This positioning signals a dense ecosystem where startups, scale-ups, and established enterprises can access AI expertise, capital, and talent. A thriving AI ecosystem supports widespread experimentation, collaboration, and investment, all of which are crucial to translating GenAI enrollments into real-world outcomes such as new products, processes, and services that enhance national competitiveness.
In parallel with the ecosystem development, the country’s digital upskilling efforts are characterized by a strong emphasis on practical, job-relevant training. The 87% share of employers prioritizing technology literacy, AI, and big data signals a demand for programs that deliver tangible competencies applicable to modern workplaces. The 13% of the labor force already engaged in online learning demonstrates a baseline of ongoing education that can be amplified through policy support, employer partnerships, and flexible delivery models. The synergy between an active learning culture and a vibrant AI business environment creates a feedback loop: as learners acquire AI-related skills, firms demand higher-skilled talent, which in turn fuels more investment in both education and AI infrastructure.
A key policy pillar supporting this ecosystem is the national AI strategy, which encourages the integration of AI across sectors and public services. The UAE’s approach also includes substantial infrastructure investments, such as the 5GW AI Campus project, which is designed to provide skilled capacity, research facilities, and industry collaboration opportunities. By embedding AI into public school curricula, the country is cultivating a pipeline of talent equipped to participate in AI-driven innovation from an early age, ensuring continuity in skill development across generations. The Read-UAE and broader AI firm landscape reflect a deliberate alignment of private sector growth with public sector policy, a combination that helps sustain momentum in a competitive global environment.
The Learning Landscape in the MENA Region: Skills, Access, and Mobility
Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2025 covers more than 100 countries and provides a comprehensive view of the learning landscape. Within this framework, the UAE emerges as a clear regional leader in digital upskilling, but challenges persist that warrant close attention. Across the MENA region, the number of learners totals about 10.8 million, with the UAE home to roughly 1.3 million learners and a median learner age of 36. This demographic profile suggests a mature, mid-career audience that is highly motivated to upgrade capabilities in response to job market shifts and economic diversification pressures. The prevalence of mobile access to learning is a notable trend, with 41% of users in the UAE accessing content via mobile devices. This mobility aligns with changing learning habits and the need for flexible, on-demand education solutions that accommodate busy professionals and a wide geographic audience.
Despite strong momentum in online learning, the UAE—and the region more broadly—faces persistent challenges in aligning skills development with labor market needs. Among UAE employers, 72% identify skills gaps as a major barrier to achieving performance targets. This rate exceeds the global average and underscores the urgency of targeted upskilling initiatives, particularly for high-demand domains such as technology and data science. In addition, gender dynamics remain a critical area for improvement. Women currently constitute 32% of online learners in the UAE, with only 24% enrolled in STEM courses and 21% pursuing GenAI-focused programs. These figures reveal substantial opportunities to broaden participation and ensure that women have equal access to the most promising and highest-growth fields in AI and tech.
From a sectoral perspective, the UAE’s proficiency profile reveals uneven strengths and opportunities for growth. The country ranks 38th globally in overall skills proficiency across business, technology, and data science, while it leads the Arab world in this aggregate measure. A closer look shows strong performance in business skills, where proficiency stands at 85%, indicating a solid foundation for applying AI in real-world business contexts. Data science shows moderate strength, with a proficiency level around 59%, suggesting room for expansion in analytics, modeling, and data-driven decision-making. Technology proficiency sits at 52%, highlighting the need for continued investment in core tech competencies, software development, and AI deployment capabilities. This nuanced picture suggests that while the UAE has built notable strengths, continued, coordinated investments across domains will be essential to lift overall capabilities and reduce skill gaps further.
The broader regional context reinforces the UAE’s role as a leader in digital upskilling, but also emphasizes the need for inclusive growth strategies. The MENA region’s large pool of learners presents a vast opportunity to accelerate AI adoption if barriers to access, affordability, and inclusion can be effectively addressed. Mobile learning, given its prominence in the UAE, could play a central role in expanding reach to more diverse populations and enabling lifelong learning across different segments of the workforce. The combination of high business skills proficiency and growing emphasis on AI-related competencies positions the UAE to translate learning investments into measurable productivity gains, competitiveness, and resilience in the face of rapid technological change.
Challenges and Pathways: Gender Gap, Skills Shortage, and Inclusive Growth
Despite the UAE’s progress and strong strategic commitments, notable challenges remain that require deliberate policy attention and collaborative action. The country’s global position on overall skills proficiency is solid but indicates that there is still a significant journey toward comprehensive, cross-domain readiness. The 38th-place standing globally means there is considerable headroom to catch up with leading economies, even as the UAE maintains leadership within the Arab world. This reality suggests that continued investments in learning infrastructure, curriculum alignment, and employer-led training programs are essential to sustain momentum.
Within this context, two interrelated issues deserve particular emphasis: the gender gap in participation and the persistent digital skills shortage. The gender gap is visible both in the general pool of online learners and in the subset pursuing STEM and GenAI content. With women representing only 32% of online learners and only 24% enrolled in STEM, and 21% in GenAI, there is a clear opportunity to design and implement targeted interventions that attract and retain more women in high-growth tech domains. Such initiatives could include scholarships, mentorship programs, flexible learning pathways, and partnerships with industry to route women into entry-to-mid career AI roles, thereby accelerating inclusive growth and ensuring a broad talent base.
On the skills shortage front, the high percentage of employers citing gaps underscores the need for a more granular alignment between curricula and market needs. The defense against this shortage rests on several pillars: expanding access to high-quality, demand-driven online programs; forging stronger collaboration between employers and educational providers to align learning outcomes with job requirements; investing in micro-credentials and stackable certificates that allow workers to build specialized capabilities without long training timelines; and promoting continuous learning cultures within firms that reward upskilling and cross-disciplinary collaboration. In addition, cultivating a robust pipeline of GenAI talent requires early exposure, sustained training, and pathways from foundational knowledge to advanced, applied AI competencies.
The UAE’s 2031 AI strategy naturally intersects with these priorities. By institutionalizing AI in education, expanding the AI Campus infrastructure, and driving widespread adoption of AI across sectors, the country can address skill gaps while fostering innovation ecosystems that support high-quality employment opportunities. Improving data literacy, fostering AI literacy across the population, and ensuring equitable access to digital resources will be essential to maximizing the social and economic returns of these investments. The emphasis on inclusive growth should also extend to underrepresented groups in STEM and tech, with targeted outreach programs designed to raise participation rates and retention in AI-related fields.
Policy Imperatives, Education, and the Road Ahead
The UAE’s path forward rests on a multi-faceted policy framework designed to scale AI adoption, improve skill readiness, and strengthen the national innovation system. Central to this framework is the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031, which seeks to make AI a major contributor to the non-oil economy and to embed AI across government services, industry, and education. The strategic objective of achieving more than 20% of non-oil GDP powered by AI by 2031 signals a bold ambition to reorient the economic structure toward knowledge-intensive activities, supported by a robust ecosystem of training, research, and commercialization.
A key enabler of this vision is the 5GW AI Campus, which promises to create a critical mass of talent and a physical hub for AI research, development, and enterprise collaboration. The campus is expected to catalyze technology transfer, advance applied AI projects, and attract both domestic and international investment, thereby reinforcing the UAE’s status as a leading regional AI hub. Complementing these infrastructure investments, the UAE is integrating AI into public school curricula to ensure that future generations enter the workforce with foundational AI literacy and practical competency. By familiarizing students with AI concepts, data literacy, and ethical considerations from an early age, the country aims to cultivate a generation of workers who can contribute to, and lead, AI-enabled transformation across sectors.
These policy measures, together with the broader emphasis on upskilling through Coursera’s programs and similar platforms, create a cohesive approach to talent development. They enable a continuous, scalable learning ecosystem that aligns with industry needs, supports career progression, and fosters innovation. The strategic emphasis on AI readiness, digital skills development, and inclusive access to education underscores the UAE’s commitment to creating a sustainable, knowledge-based economy capable of competing on the global stage.
Kais Zribi’s remarks underscore the practical impact of these efforts: the UAE is not merely increasing enrollment numbers but building a comprehensive learning and infrastructure framework that accelerates workforce transformation and regional innovation. The combination of high engagement, strong policy support, and tangible infrastructure investments demonstrates the country’s growing ability to close skill gaps, nurture future talent, and lead in AI readiness within the Arab world and beyond.
Conclusion
The Global Skills Report 2025 confirms what policy makers, educators, and industry stakeholders in the UAE have long believed: the country is intensifying its focus on AI-enabled skills, with GenAI enrollments surging at a magnitude that outpaces regional and global trends. This momentum is supported by Read-UAE’s strong per-capita presence of AI firms, an extensive commitment to upskilling, and a national AI strategy designed to propel AI into the core of the economy by 2031 and beyond. The UAE’s readiness, as reflected in the AI Maturity Index, highlights a strategic alignment of learner engagement, policy frameworks, and infrastructural capacity that positions the nation as a regional leader in AI readiness and a destination for AI-driven innovation. While significant progress has been made, challenges persist, notably the gender gap and persistent skills shortages. Addressing these through targeted inclusion initiatives, stronger collaboration between employers and educators, and ongoing investment in upskilling will be critical to sustaining growth. If the UAE maintains its current trajectory—emphasizing education, infrastructure, and inclusive policy design—it can translate high engagement with AI and online learning into durable economic diversification, productivity gains, and a competitive, knowledge-based future for its diverse population.