Dubai RTA prepares agentic AI upgrade for Mahboub virtual assistant

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority has upgraded Mahboub, its virtual assistant, with agentic artificial intelligence and is preparing the updated service for public rollout. The authority described the change in a release published on October 22, 2026. It said the upgrade is part of its Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2030.

The announced scope focuses first on vehicle licensing. A user could ask the assistant to carry out connected steps, such as paying a vehicle fine and then renewing the vehicle registration, within one conversation. RTA listed registration renewal, fine payment, clearance certificate issuance and number plate reservation renewal among the initial services.

The workflow is intended to coordinate procedures across services instead of requiring the user to navigate them separately. The authority said the system uses UAE PASS for identity verification and Dubai Sadad for payment. It said language models have been fine-tuned for the local context and that the assistant supports both Arabic and English.

RTA presented the upgrade as an effort to reduce channel switching and the number of steps needed to complete a transaction. It also said the service aims to reduce the time and effort involved in accessing RTA services. The announcement did not provide measured completion times, adoption figures or a public launch date.

The release says development is being carried out under RTA’s existing governance and cybersecurity procedures. That description sets out the authority’s stated approach; the release does not detail testing results, the data used to train the models, or how the system handles failed or ambiguous requests.

The planned public rollout will therefore be the next observable milestone. Until RTA publishes launch details or outcome measures, the announcement establishes the functions and safeguards it says are in scope, but does not demonstrate that users have already received the upgraded service or that transactions have become faster.

RTA describes the change as a move from answering questions toward helping complete a sequence of linked procedures. The examples in its release are all transport-administration tasks: a fine may be paid before the registration renewal is completed, while clearance certificates and number-plate reservation renewals are also within the stated initial scope. The authority says identity checks and payment remain tied to UAE PASS and Dubai Sadad. It has not said that Mahboub can make discretionary decisions, replace staff, or act outside those named services, so the description should be read as a bounded service workflow.

RTA said these are planned functions, not an already completed public rollout.