Abu Dhabi deploys AI-Driven drones as first responders to emergencies and disasters

Abu Dhabi: “Today the goal is for the drone to be the first responder to emergencies, crises and disasters in the Emirates,” Shaikha Khamis Al Azeezi, director of the Business Continuity and Alternative Services Department at the Emergency, Crisis and Disaster Management Centre (ADCMC) said.

She spoke to Gulf News at The Military Medicine exhibition at ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi, where ADCMC is showing a drone service alongside a set of AI tools designed to keep Abu Dhabi running when something goes wrong.

What the drone can do

She described the technology on show as the newest and best, supported by AI. In a large fire, she explained, the drone follows the path of the flames and gives response teams the information they need, including the safe evacuation routes for people. In severe weather it can show, for example, where water is collecting.

It can also be sent to unexpected incidents in places that are hard for crews to reach, and it makes search and rescue easier because it carries cameras and sensors.

“We want to increase efficiency, and this helps,” she said.

A readiness for hospitals

The main project ADCMC is presenting this week was developed with the Department of Health (DOH): a business continuity standard for the health sector.

“It highlights the importance of this sector across Abu Dhabi,” she said, adding that its clauses set out roles and responsibilities “before, during and after any incident.”

AI helps enforce it. “We use an AI tool to maintain a full agentic AI platform for external audits for the different hospitals and assets, including within the health sector,” she said.

She called the standard a global first, “the first project across the globe having a detailed standard for each and every critical process across the EMS.”

Building it since 2021

ADCMC was established in 2021, she said, and since then it has run awareness campaigns across government, semi-government and private organisations to stress the need for business continuity in each one.

“We support these entities to audit different teams and make sure that they are ready and have the available resources to deal with any type of emergency,” she said.

The centre has also produced a readiness index that places each entity at a specific level, and that level is escalated depending on the nature of an incident in the emirate.

The exhibition, she added, is “the best chance to meet different teams across the Emirates” in pursuit of the centre’s aim of “having Abu Dhabi ready for any type of crisis.”

Simulating the worst day

A second project, Jaheziya, is an online system that simulates exercises and incidents that could happen in Abu Dhabi. “We locate different resources, and we assess the maturity of each entity’s role to make sure they will be ready to deal with any type of incident,” she said. The system uses AI to simulate incidents, assess roles and responsibilities, and “bring feedback to entities to ensure their maturity.”

A third tool, AIN, is what she called “a fully agentic AI tool” that supports processes across the centre. “We have AI agents for business continuity, for assessing risk, for operations, for exercises, using recent technology to support the processes across ADCMC,” she said.

The platform is private and was “initially built by ADCMC employees,” she said. “We maintain a security level and security layers to make sure that this is a secure platform.”

Five years ahead

Looking ahead, she said Abu Dhabi leads the Emirates in this field and expects automation to deepen.

“In the next five years, we will see different projects that automate the emergency framework, supported by AI tools, to make sure Abu Dhabi is still ready and can deal with any type of emergency and crisis, with well-prepared teams, well-available resources and a very fast and mature journey,” she said.

Other countries are welcome to take a look, she added. “We have different projects that other countries can visit ADCMC and see the best practice globally.”