e& UAE embeds agentic AI into mobile and broadband products

e& UAE is putting agentic AI inside existing broadband and mobile product lines rather than offering it as a bolt-on service. The Abu Dhabi-based operator claims it’s the first telecom provider in the region to take this approach.

Enterprises usually have to procure AI tools, connectivity, security, and compute from separate vendors before any deployment can begin. e& UAE’s pitch removes that assembly step by placing agentic AI capability inside the products that organisations already buy.

Agentic AI can understand objectives, organise information, and carry out connected sequences of tasks under defined controls. In a business setting, that translates into automating routine processes, managing workflows, responding to requests, and pulling relevant information without manual intervention at each step. The company has paired this with what it calls Sovereign AI Compute, which combines UAE-based graphics processing unit capacity with secure, high-performance connectivity.

Esam Mahmoud, SVP of the SMB division at e& UAE, said: “By embedding Agentic AI into our core Business Mobile and Business Pro Internet plans, we are making AI accessible from day one. Combined with our sovereign AI infrastructure and secure national network, we are providing businesses with everything they need to adopt AI with confidence.

“This gives organisations a clearer and more practical route to adopting Agentic AI, with the control, performance, and local infrastructure they need to move from experimentation to everyday use. Our aim is to make intelligent capabilities as accessible and useful to businesses as connectivity itself.”

Larger enterprises and government entities get a different route: they can combine the same agentic AI layer with e& UAE’s enterprise fixed-connectivity tier to support data-intensive workloads and distributed operations across multiple sites. e& UAE says this addresses barriers to AI adoption as it identifies infrastructure constraints, security considerations, and the need for specialist resources, letting customers start with the AI tools in their existing connectivity contract and scale into sovereign computing, security, and cloud services later.

Sovereign AI Compute is the infrastructure layer underneath the agentic AI proposition. It gives organisations access to UAE-based GPU capacity for developing, testing, training and deploying AI applications, alongside connectivity services. e& UAE says the arrangement keeps sensitive data within national borders, which it positions as a compliance route for organisations operating under local regulatory requirements while still building AI applications.

The company links the announcement to wider UAE policy goals. PwC estimates AI could contribute close to 14 percent of the UAE’s GDP, around $96 billion, by 2030, a figure e& UAE cites as aligning with the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031, which positions AI as a driver of economic diversification and government transformation.

A second network layer: 5G-native IoT

Four days prior to this announcement, e& UAE said it had become the first telecom operator globally to test enhanced Reduced Capability (eRedCap) on a live commercial network.

Where the agentic AI news sits at the application and services layer, eRedCap addresses the device and radio layer beneath it, and the two announcements point to the same underlying strategy: building a 5G-Advanced network that can carry both AI workloads and mass IoT device fleets natively, rather than running parallel legacy systems.

eRedCap is designed for connected devices that do not need the full performance of 5G. e& UAE names smart utility meters, industrial sensors and controllers, asset and fleet tracking, payment terminals, building-management systems, security devices, and selected wearables as target use cases. The technology is meant to give these deployments the coverage, battery life, and cost profile that large-scale IoT rollouts need while keeping a route open into the 5G-Advanced standard rather than staying tied to LTE indefinitely.

Abdulrahman Al Humaidan, SVP of Access Network Development at e& UAE, commented: “The value of eRedCap is the ability to bring practical, everyday IoT applications into the 5G era at the right cost, power profile, and coverage.

“By proving this capability on our live commercial network, e& UAE is giving utilities, manufacturers, logistics providers, smart-city operators, and other sectors a credible path to scale connected devices and prepare for the industry’s long-term transition beyond LTE.”

eRedCap builds on RedCap’s power-saving design but uses a narrower 5MHz channel and lower peak data rates, which e& UAE says extends device battery life from the 1-3 years typical of RedCap to 5-10 years, a range comparable to Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) technologies. The company says eRedCap matches LTE Cat-1/Cat-1bis on cost, coverage, and battery life, positioning it as a 5G Standalone-native replacement for legacy IoT hardware as operators plan LTE spectrum refarming.

In the live test, e& UAE integrated a Data Transmission Unit into its commercial 5G Standalone network to verify eRedCap services, and recorded throughput of up to 10Mbps on eRedCap-class devices operating over the narrow 5MHz NR-FDD channel.

e& UAE argues eRedCap reduces network and device fragmentation by letting more IoT use cases consolidate onto 5G Standalone instead of maintaining separate technology paths for high-performance 5G and LTE-based IoT, which it says simplifies device lifecycle management and service assurance without requiring every sensor or meter to carry full-capability 5G hardware.

Neither release specifies commercial availability dates, pricing tiers for the agentic AI add-ons, or which enterprise customers have deployed either capability in production beyond the operator’s own network testing. The eRedCap milestone is described as a live network test rather than a general commercial launch, and e& UAE has not disclosed the volume of eRedCap-class devices it expects to support or a timeline for LTE sunset in the UAE market.

See also: What Level 4 autonomous networks actually means, and what it does not

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