The simultaneous arrival of a new capital-market authority, a rewritten companies law, and stricter governance and audit rules is transforming UAE corporate governance from a compliance exercise into a demonstrable system of control.
Across large enterprises, boards are approving AI governance frameworks. The policy approval meeting has become a standard board agenda item: AI use case register, model risk policy, ethics principles, human oversight requirements. The vote passes. The governance record is clean.
Governance frameworks have made genuine progress on audit independence. Dual reporting lines - administrative to the CFO, functional to the audit committee - are now standard in most mature organizations. The IIA Global Internal Audit Standards codify functional reporting to the board. Audit committee charters address it. Regulators ask about it.