startAD Launches UAE's First AI Adoption Barometer for Healthcare and Social Impact

startAD, the Abu Dhabi–based startup accelerator powered by Tamkeen and anchored at NYU Abu Dhabi, has launched the UAE’s first AI Adoption Barometer focused on healthcare and social impact. Developed through startAD’s AI for Good initiative with support from Google.org, the Barometer draws on insights from 52 UAE-based organizations and is accompanied by two implementation playbooks and a new AI Resource Hub designed to help mission-driven organisations move from interest in AI to practical adoption.

“AI for Good was created to help mission-driven organizations move from interest in AI to practical adoption. One of the clearest needs that emerged from our work was for practical, step-by-step implementable, accessible guidance – tools that meet organizations where they are and help them move forward responsibly and realistically.” — Ashwin Joshi, Director, startAD

The Barometer provides the first practitioner-informed snapshot of how organisations across healthcare and social impact are integrating artificial intelligence. While the report finds strong enthusiasm, it highlights a gap between momentum and readiness. In healthcare specifically, 81% of organisations surveyed have defined AI use cases and 58% are already piloting or deploying solutions, yet 42% report having no dedicated AI budget. In the social impact sector, many institutions remain at an earlier stage, still working to define use cases and build internal capacity for responsible adoption.

What the launch includes

• AI Adoption Barometer: a benchmarking reference and decision-support tool organisations can download and use to assess their AI readiness and practice.
• AI Use Case Discovery Playbook: a non-technical guide that helps teams turn a vague idea into a testable AI use case.
• Evaluate and Pilot AI Solutions Playbook: practical guidance for assessing, selecting, and running responsible pilots within existing operations.

startAD’s AI for Good programme has already engaged five organisations through 13 AI readiness workshops, delivered a reported 43% overall increase in AI readiness, and mobilised close to 200 university students and solution builders across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region. The initiative is supported regionally by Google.org, which has backed startAD as part of Google’s regional AI Opportunity Initiative.

“While AI may seem complex, we are convinced that healthcare organizations can embrace it. This project challenges the assumption that meaningful AI requires massive financial resources or specialized technical proficiency. Being part of Google’s regional AI Opportunity Initiative, Google.org’s support to startAD is designed to improve healthcare accessibility for disadvantaged communities across the UAE.” — Anthony Nakache, Managing Director, Google MENA

The Barometer emphasises four practical priorities for organisations seeking to move beyond experimentation: identifying meaningful use cases, establishing governance frameworks, allocating resources effectively, and implementing solutions responsibly. Equally important, startAD highlights, is defining clear metrics to measure performance and impact, and ensuring successful use cases can scale from individual projects into broader organisational adoption.

Looking ahead, startAD positions the Barometer and playbooks as working tools for institutions that need low-barrier, step-by-step guidance. By offering benchmarking data alongside actionable implementation materials, the accelerator aims to convert early interest into measurable deployments, close funding and capacity gaps—especially in healthcare where pilot activity is high but budget allocation remains limited—and foster systematic scaling of proven AI use cases across the UAE’s mission-driven organisations.