Stories › Workforce › Dubai AI Festival opens on 26 October, focused on putting AI to work Image: DIFC First reported 18 September 2026 · Updated 21 October 2026 · 8 sources · 1 country
Dubai AI Festival opens on 26 October, focused on putting AI to work Dubai AI Festival runs on 26 and 27 October 2026 at Dubai World Trade Centre, six months after its original April dates. In its 20 October announcement, DIFC said the third edition expects more than 150 speakers, 500 investors and 200 exhibitors. The programme focuses on moving AI from experiments into everyday work. Coverage so far is the organiser’s release and event guides; independent reporting should follow once it opens.
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DIFC announced on 20 October that the third edition runs 26–27 October at Dubai World Trade Centre under the theme “Where Intelligence Meets Opportunity”. It’s organised by Dubai AI Campus with the Office of the UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence. DIFC’s release, republished by Zawya, says organisers expect attendees from more than 100 countries, 150+ speakers, 500 investors, 200 exhibitors and 50+ roundtables and workshops. These are targets, not attendance figures. Zawya’s copy of the release names AWS, Alibaba Cloud, ElevenLabs, Mistral AI, Mubadala, Scale AI, Snowflake and Dubai’s RTA among the participants. Hi Dubai listed the programme topics: AI governance, agentic AI, enterprise transformation, computing infrastructure, investment, ethics, AI literacy and the future of work. Dubai Tech Insider and Verity Gulf reported that the festival moved from 7–8 April and that existing passes carry over automatically. Executive Moves placed the festival in Hall 1 and Za’abeel Hall 3, with Terrapinn managing the event. Dubai Tech Insider said winners of the FutureTech World Cup pitch competition receive a Dubai AI Licence and $25,000 in AWS credits. Entry is open to startups with under $250,000 in revenue and a working product. What it adds up to
The organisers frame this edition around moving AI out of pilots and into daily work. The programme puts AI literacy and the future of work next to investment and infrastructure, and those literacy and adoption sessions are the useful ones for knowledge workers. If you attend, choose them over the headline keynotes, and bring one task from your own week to ask speakers about. If you don’t, read the coverage afterwards for what organisations say they changed in practice rather than how many launches they announced.
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