{
  "id": 17975325,
  "title": "80% of young adults use ChatGPT weekly, OpenAI executive says",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/03/80-of-young-adults-use-chatgpt-weekly-openai-executive-says",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-11-03T13:33:33.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Gulf News",
    "slug": "gulf-news",
    "url": "https://gulfnews.com/uae/abu-dhabi/80-of-young-adults-use-chatgpt-weekly-openai-executive-says-1.500734485"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Nearly 80% of young adults in the United Arab Emirates use ChatGPT on a weekly basis, according to Rod Solaimani, Policy & Partnerships Lead for MENA and Central Asia. Speaking at ADIPEC 2026, Solaimani highlighted the region's enthusiasm for AI as it expands across various sectors, including government, business, and daily life. He emphasized that the UAE and the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is distinguished by its optimism about AI, combined with significant investment in infrastructure, energy, computing capacity, and talent.\n\nSolaimani attributed the UAE's forward-thinking approach to partnerships with regional companies such as ADNOC, the Department of Government Enablement (DGE), Mubadala, and Inception. He noted that access to AI tools should be accompanied by training to help people effectively apply them in their work, a goal the DGE is pursuing through an AI upskilling program for 20,000 government employees. ADNOC has made ChatGPT and Codex available to 40,000 employees, with a 97% utilization rate, casting doubt on the notion that people must choose between on-prem or cloud, open-source or closed-source solutions.\n\nLeaders should focus on how to best serve their people, Solaimani argued, rather than viewing AI decisions as a binary choice. He also emphasized the importance of AI sovereignty, stressing that the UAE is now the third region globally, after the United States and Europe, where OpenAI models are available for in-country inference. In 2023, the UAE invested in localized Arabic-language models to attract talent and build a lasting technology ecosystem.\n\nSolaimani highlighted the practical applications of AI in the UAE, from assisting students in preparing study materials to supporting entrepreneurs in developing business ideas. He also discussed ADNOC's partnership with OpenAI, focusing on AI applications in field development planning, drilling decisions, reserve estimation, and exploring ways to optimize downstream trading and workforce productivity. The partnership aims to empower employees through an \"intelligence layer\" that checks queries, labels, and terminology against relevant information, with future work potentially extending to robotics and offshore operations.\n\nIn summary, Solaimani stressed that the UAE is taking its AI ambitions and turning them into action across various industries, government sectors, and pilots, lifting people's skills and productivity in the process.",
  "summary": "Abu Dhabi: Nearly 80% of UAE residents aged 18 to 34 use ChatGPT weekly, Rod Solaimani, Policy & Partnerships Lead for MENA and Central Asia said, pointing to the country’s enthusiasm for AI as the technology spreads across government sector, business and daily life. In an interview at ADIPEC 2026, he said that ordinary people in the MENA do not need to worry about AI taking over their job, as…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}