In a progressive move to protect financial operations, Dubai’s Department of Finance (DOF) launched the world’s first AI-powered compliance verification platform — AI-Assisted System for Compliance Verification and Recommendations (ASCEND). The DOF announced the launch on the first day of Dubai AI Week 2025, a five-day AI event organized by the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence and the Dubai Future Foundation.
Following the launch, the Director General of DOF, His Excellency Abdulrahman Saleh Al Saleh, remarked that ASCEND reflects the government’s commitment to safeguarding operations using advanced technology and innovation.
He further added: “As we embed AI into the core of our financial governance model, we are not only enhancing operational efficiency but also reinforcing Dubai’s position as a global leader in digital government.”
Moreover, the CEO of AI at Dubai Finance, Huda Hamdan Al Shaikh, added that the new compliance platform is DOF’s key solution to overcome compliance challenges, such as “fragmented data environments, manual verification processes, and the absence of real-time governance tools.”
Besides being simply a smart technology, ASCEND will act as an accelerator to ensure accountability, agility, and excellence in the public finance industry.
How does ASCEND work?
For the uninitiated, AI Compliance technology is a smart system that uses machine learning and AI technology to process data. This innovative technology monitors activities, risks, or violations, flags suspicious activity, and generates audits.
ASCEND uses an open-source Large Language Model (LLM), a multi-step process fueled by AI and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), an AI framework used to retrieve facts from external information. The new system reads and comprehends complex legal documents and analyzes activities related to finance. ASCEND also verifies whether all the financial activities are following the applicable regulations.
