Building an AI-powered city: Stories from EMEA

Woman looking at her phone while standing on a busy street with people rushing past

Cities are racing to implement AI in public services. According to the ServiceNow AI-Powered Cities of the Future report, 56% of 250 cities worldwide use AI to supercharge their initiatives. The technology helps solve urbanisation challenges and enable frictionless service delivery for citizens.

Our research categorises cities as AI leaders, advancers, or adopters based on their level of AI maturity. It reveals that of the 103 cities surveyed in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), 19% are classified as leaders, 55% as advancers, and 25% as adopters.

Let’s explore the initiatives that go into building a successful AI city in EMEA.

What makes a city an AI leader?

EMEA’s city AI leaders are rapidly scaling AI solutions across urban services. Our research identified the top three use cases across a range of areas:

Cities in EMEA are combining AI with other critical technologies, helping to create novel solutions to urban challenges. Our research found every AI leader in the region reports using internet of things (IoT) sensors to record environmental data—such as temperature or pedestrian footfall. The majority (95%) also use cloud and cybersecurity technologies alongside AI.

AI helps 75% of EMEA AI leaders feel prepared to deal with urban challenges, such as climate change and the cost of building new homes, compared to 42% of AI adopters.

Europe: Forecasting planning needs

Cities in Europe are vying to become AI hubs to attract talent and investment and drive economic growth. In fact, Europe is home to 16 of EMEA’s 20 cities categorised as AI leaders. Officials use the technology to forecast and mitigate issues linked to the region’s dense populations and high pollution levels.

In Murcia, Spain, leaders use predictive analytics to plan repairs to infrastructure. This helps reduce the likelihood of costly emergency maintenance and extend how long assets can be used.

Similarly, AI advancer Vilnius, Lithuania, uses drones and AI to assess the conditions of public spaces and support efficient maintenance.

AI leader Helsinki uses AI to analyse citizen health data and inform the city’s healthcare services. By recognising gaps and prioritising patients accordingly, officials can help improve patient outcomes.

These and other AI-leading cities in Europe will remain at the forefront of AI adoption in EMEA. The majority (88%) plan to actively use AI throughout the next three years—a 52% increase from today.

Middle East: Improving citizen experiences

Cities in the Middle East are accelerating modernisation efforts with AI, drawing on their technological and economic prowess. Currently, 38% of Middle Eastern cities use AI—a number that's predicted to almost double to 70% in the next three years.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, deploys AI for crowd monitoring and crime prediction. Local authorities use data from the citywide camera network to identify areas of concern and stop crimes before they happen. The Dubai Police Force also launched Robocop Dubai, a person-sized AI robot that answers public queries and takes incident reports with little to no human intervention.

Beyond policing, Dubai uses generative AI (GenAI) to improve access to information. Citizens can send complex queries to public services, such as the Roads and Transport Authority, and receive fully automated, personalised answers from customer service chatbots to accelerate issue resolution.

Dammam, Saudi Arabia, ranks first for use of AI in government operations. City leaders analyse data with AI and use the insights to make continuous service improvements.

Africa: Promoting safety

Africa’s urban population is projected to triple to 1.5 billion by 2050, according to Statista. The rate of expansion is challenging for infrastructure to keep pace. Leaders are using AI to address developmental challenges and make city services more resilient.

In Nairobi, Kenya, nearly 15% of the population spend an average of four hours commuting to work, according to urbanNext Lexicon. To help minimise congestion, the city uses an AI-powered traffic management system to dynamically coordinate traffic signals based on data from cameras, sensors, and GPS in vehicles.

Cape Town, South Africa, uses AI to optimise water management. Since a severe drought from 2015 to 2018, the city has practised conservation techniques based on smart metering and data analytics. AI allows teams to more reliably analyse climate models, predict water availability, and improve distribution in the city.

Lusaka, Zambia, is improving urban planning with AI. City designers create detailed digital maps of the city to support the development of transport and land use plans, manage land tenure and ownership, and integrate census data for better resource allocation.

In the next three years, African cities intend to increase the use of GenAI from 8% to 36%, driven by investment from technology startups and multilateral organisations such as the World Bank.

For global cities, putting AI to work will support public services and help solve local challenges.

Gain more insights in our full, complimentary AI-Powered Cities of the Future report.