Dubai Police has identified 10 emerging AI opportunities that could shape policing by 2040, covering areas such as criminal investigations, autonomous patrols, proactive security and personalized public services.
The findings, developed by Dubai Police’s Future Foresight Centre, examine how AI could help law enforcement agencies anticipate security threats, adapt operations and respond to emerging threats and risks.
Brigadier Dr Hamdan Ahmad Al Ghassiya, Director of the Future Foresight Centre at Dubai Police, said, “AI is expected to fundamentally change the nature of policing by 2040.”
He explained that intelligent systems could move beyond supporting police operations to performing complex security tasks with varying degrees of autonomy, working alongside human personnel.
Al Ghassiya cited the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, which found that 86% of employers surveyed expect businesses to be transformed by AI and information-processing technologies by 2030.
The 10 areas identified by Al Ghassiya are hyper-personalized services, AI agent swarms, proactive security sensing, AI-enhanced criminal investigations, physical AI, autonomous patrol systems, self-adaptive cybersecurity, cognitive operating models, hybrid human-AI teams and generative security simulation.
He said the changes could reshape responsibilities across police organisations and introduce new capabilities in criminal investigations, security operations and responses to emerging threats. AI systems capable of processing large volumes of data and responding to security developments in real time could also support more efficient operational models and decision-making.
