UAE Launches Jais 3: Arabic AI That Understands Dialects, Speech and Tasks
Jais 3 is a new fleet of open Arabic AI models from MBZUAI and Inception42 that reads dialects, transcribes speech and carries out tasks. Here is who can use it.
By Vadim Kouznetsov, published
The UAE has launched Jais 3, a new fleet of Arabic AI models that understands spoken and written Arabic across dialects and can carry out practical tasks such as transcribing conversations and building documents. It was built by the Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and Inception42, according to Gulf News.
What is Jais 3, the new Arabic AI?
Jais 3 is the latest member of the Jais family, first launched in Abu Dhabi. It pairs six open language models with Jais Speech, a speech recognition model for Arabic and its dialects.
The six language models range from 900 million to 375 billion parameters. The smallest can run on a phone. All of them share the same agent capabilities and a context window of 512,000 tokens, which the developers say is the longest of any Arabic-native model.
Everything is built on K2 Horizon, IFM's fully open-source foundation model fleet released in September 2026. Jais 3 is the first time K2 Horizon has been adapted to a new language.
What Jais 3 can do with Arabic dialects and speech
The models were trained on Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects, from Emirati and Gulf Arabic to North African Arabic, along with the cultural knowledge of a language spoken by more than 400 million people.
Haonan Li, senior research scientist at IFM, said it was built for Arabic "as it's really used", including when speakers slip into English or French. According to the developers, Jais Speech:
- Transcribes Modern Standard Arabic and dialects spoken across 19 Arab countries in real-world conditions
- Keeps English or French words in their original script when speakers switch languages
- Identifies which dialect is being spoken
- Can add Arabic vowel marks to a transcript
This lets Jais 3 take spoken instructions in Arabic or English and act on them.
In tests on 24 Arabic benchmarks, which are being released publicly, the developers report that the largest model leads open models on agentic tasks and Jais Speech beat every model compared on word and character error rates, including commercial services.
Who can use Jais 3 and where to get it
For now, Jais 3 is a toolkit for builders. The models and Jais Speech are available on Hugging Face, with deployment support for vLLM and SGLang.
- Developers can pick a model size that fits their hardware and budget.
- Researchers get five training checkpoints with each model, so they can trace its development or build from any stage.
- Government entities and enterprises in the UAE and beyond can adapt the models and decide where to deploy them, in line with sovereign AI requirements.
Dr. Larry Murray, SVP Applied Science at Inception42, said the models make Arabic AI "more practical for business use".
What Jais 3 means for jobs and skills in the UAE
Richard Morton, executive director of IFM, linked Jais 3 to the UAE National AI Strategy 2031 and to building national talent. See our explainer on the UAE AI Strategy 2031 and its career opportunities.
Gulf News gives no hiring figures, but the tasks these models target, such as transcribing Arabic conversations and drafting Arabic documents, are everyday office work. People who can set up and adapt Arabic AI for real workplaces are likely to be in demand as more organisations try it.
Jais 3 also joins other Abu Dhabi Arabic models, such as Falcon-H1 Arabic, and government services are already using AI, as with MoHRE's AI work permit checks. If you work in tech or data, you can browse current UAE jobs.
Key takeaway
Jais 3 is an open, Arabic-first AI fleet that understands dialects, transcribes speech and carries out tasks. Developers and organisations can download it from Hugging Face now, and it points to growing demand for people who can put Arabic AI to work.
FAQ
What is Jais 3?
Jais 3 is a fleet of Arabic AI models from MBZUAI's Institute of Foundation Models and Inception42. It includes six language models and Jais Speech, a speech recognition model for Arabic dialects.
Can anyone use Jais 3?
The models are open and available on Hugging Face. Developers, researchers, companies and government entities can download, adapt and deploy them.
Does Jais 3 understand Emirati Arabic?
Yes. According to its developers, it was trained on Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects including Emirati and Gulf Arabic.
Can Jais 3 run on a phone?
The smallest model, at 900 million parameters, can run on a phone, according to the developers.
Who built Jais 3?
It was created by IFM at MBZUAI and Inception42, with Cerebras Systems.
Further reading
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