Technology leaders across Europe, the Middle East and Africa are under pressure to deliver more than resilient technology systems and efficient IT operations. They are expected to help their organisations grow, adapt, earn trust and turn emerging technologies, especially AI, into measurable business outcomes. Forrester’s Technology & AI Award recognises an organisation that demonstrates outstanding leadership in technology strategy, data and AI innovation and enterprise architecture (EA). 

Congratulations to the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority for winning this year’s award. 

Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) embarked on an enterprise-wide transformation to become the world’s first AI-native utility company. It unified technology, data and AI strategy with enterprise architecture practices to deliver meaningful operational, financial, customer and sustainability outcomes. By transforming its technology portfolio, EA practices, and data and AI capabilities, DEWA strengthened employee productivity, accelerated enterprise AI adoption, scaled AI initiatives across the organisation and advanced data governance. Most importantly, it reduced the impact of customer outages and continued to address its environmental footprint through AI-enabled services such as ‘My Sustainable Living’, which provides personalised recommendations to help customers reduce their energy consumption. 

At the centre of this transformation strategy is Alhasbah, DEWA’s mandated AI Efficiency Transformation Programme, which shifted data and AI from a collection of isolated initiatives into a strategic enterprise capability. A key pillar of the programme was redefining how the impact of technology and AI investments is measured, reorienting the focus from activity-based metrics, such as meeting deployment milestones, to validated business value. 

DEWA mandated that no initiative could advance without a business objective, a credible value case and a clear path to value realisation. These calculations are particularly important given DEWA’s preference for building core capabilities where appropriate, rather than relying solely on partnering or buying. A centralised control tower holds business and IT leaders jointly accountable and tracks committed value realisation. Ultimately, the high-performance technology team is responsible for a carefully balanced IT portfolio where core operations are protected, returns are compounded and breakthroughs are owned. 

DEWA’s strategy holds because planning, governance, delivery and workforce enablement move together. It starts with strong executive sponsorship that actively oversees AI governance. DEWA further coordinates its transformation through dedicated functions: the AI Acceleration Office (develops and scales use cases); the AI Command Centre (oversees production monitoring, compliance, and performance); and the AI Adoption Office (enables workforce adoption. DEWA also uses Mu’asherat, an internal performance management platform, to ensure alignment across teams and track organisational progress. 

Recognising the importance of improving employees’ AI literacy, DEWA offers structured learning programmes covering data governance, analytics, AI fundamentals and knowledge management for decision support. These programmes have reached employees across the organisation, achieved strong levels of employee satisfaction, empowered AI Champions across DEWA’s divisions, and significantly expanded the organisation’s community of trained AI practitioners. 

To accelerate the broader transformation, the enterprise architecture team modernised its own practices. It simplified customer journeys across channels, lifted employee productivity through automation and reusable services, and reduced enterprise risk through architectural reviews, enforced standards and design authority. Today, EA is embedded in key decision-making forums, including Demand-to-Delivery and the Change Advisory Board, and supports strategic initiatives across the organisation. Architects guide initiatives from idea to implementation rather than gating them at the end. As a direct result of their support, DEWA now gains customer insights faster, benefits from more efficient technology infrastructure, and has avoided unnecessary platform modernisation investments. 

Looking ahead, DEWA plans to further strengthen its data governance and lineage capabilities, formalise AI ethics and bias management frameworks, scale AI-driven customer service and implement AI use cases across power generation, water and grid operations. 

We applaud Dubai Electricity & Water Authority for its powerful submission. DEWA’s success demonstrates that an ambitious technology strategy can also be disciplined and accountable; that an EA practice can turn design decisions into business results; and that coordinating data and AI across business and customer operations can transform financial performance, environmental resource conservation efforts and customer experience. 

We hope to see you at Forrester’s Technology & Innovation Forum EMEA, taking place in London from September 30 to October 1 where you’ll hear from Forrester analysts and industry leaders about how they’re taking control of AI – aligning it to business priorities, strengthening modern data and technology foundations, embedding trust and resilience by design, and scaling responsibly. 

Not registered yet? Join the waitlist from our website.   

We’re inspired by the ways that technology, enterprise architecture, and data and AI teams are catalyzing effective decision-making to drive business outcomes for their organisations. If you’re inspired, start thinking about your story and submission for the 2027 Technology & AI Award! 

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