Sharjah launches world’s first AI trade-name service

Sharjah Skyline

Sharjah Economic Development Department and Sharjah Digital Department have introduced an AI-powered Trade Name Issuance Service at GITEX Global 2025 that can cut name issuance time by as much as 98 per cent. The initiative, built into the DS Assistant tool on the Digital Sharjah platform, analyses business activity data and generates compliant trade name suggestions without human intervention.

The system assesses a company’s industry, preferred naming style and regulations, then offers tailored naming options. By automating the approval workflow, it dramatically reduces processing delays and human error. Officials say this service marks the world’s first fully AI-based trade name issuance mechanism.

Hamad Ali Abdallah Al Mahmoud, Chairman of SEDD and member of the Sharjah Executive Council, said the move underscores the emirate’s goal to streamline business setup and reinforce its position as a regional innovation hub. He noted that SEDD is deepening collaboration with other government entities to expand digital transformation across regulatory and business services.

The service dovetails with broader efforts at the Sharjah Government Pavilion to showcase human-centred digital governance. Among other highlights at GITEX, the Hamriyah Free Zone Authority unveiled a Remote Company Formation project using a Vision LLM to validate identities and documents via live video calls. SDD’s pavilion also featured infrastructure systems for energy management, smart building monitoring and citizen-oriented digital welfare platforms.

Across the UAE, government agencies at GITEX are unveiling AI systems to modernise public services. Dubai Customs launched its “Voice of Customer” platform, which ingests feedback from multiple channels, applies sentiment analysis, and converts insights into action points to improve operations. The platform supports strategic decision-making by flagging emerging client concerns in real time.

Meanwhile, the broader GITEX 2025 agenda focused heavily on sovereign AI, data sovereignty and smart city ecosystems. The event drew over 6,800 exhibitors, 2,000 startups and delegates from 180 countries. Tech firms rolled out next-generation AI, quantum computing and biotechnology solutions aimed at accelerating public sector transformation.

Analysts view Sharjah’s trade name issuance system as filling a niche in the process of company formation—one that has typically remained manual and fragmented in many jurisdictions. By embedding naming rules, business-activity semantics and regulatory checks into algorithmic logic, the system could reduce friction for entrepreneurs. Yet its success will depend on the AI’s ability to interpret diverse naming preferences, local culture, language nuance and prevent politically or culturally sensitive outputs.