The UAE’s Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications Office announced that Google Gemini has ranked first in the “AI in the Ring” Index, the world’s first benchmark designed to evaluate how effectively AI language models reflect Emirati culture, dialects, traditions, and national values through a challenge centered on cultural intelligence within the UAE context.
Gemini earned the top ranking following a review of over 400 questions across 7 cultural dimensions and 5,200 generated responses from 11 major language models. A Committee of Emirati experts evaluated the outputs to identify which models demonstrated the strongest cultural understanding.
Following Gemini 2.5 Pro, the list of the top five high-performing models included: ChatGPT (OpenAI GPT-4o), ChatGPT (OpenAI o1), Cohere, and Grok.
His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, emphasized that national identity remains a priority for the UAE, especially as digital transformation accelerates. Al Olama noted that emerging technologies must reflect and reinforce the country’s authentic values, ensuring that AI systems enhance save the UAE’s cultural heritage forward with clarity and respect. His Excellency stressed that innovation is strongest when it is anchored in the roots of a nation’s identity.
Underscoring the urgency of culturally grounded AI, less than 5% of Arabic content worldwide exists in digital form, while 48% of Generation Z now relies on AI as their primary source of information, a reality that makes training models on accurate, UAE-relevant cultural data essential to safeguarding national heritage for future generations.