Q Mobility has launched a new free flow paid parking system in Abu Dhabi, introducing automatic payment deductions through users’ Darb app wallet.

The system is designed to enhance convenience and streamline the parking experience through a fully digital, user-centric mobility solution, a WAM report said.

The system uses artificial intelligence and automatic number plate recognition technology to identify vehicles and manage parking sessions without any manual intervention.

Read more-New paid parking zones announced in Abu Dhabi: Key areas revealed

Parking starts automatically when a vehicle enters a designated zone and ends upon exit, with fees calculated and deducted directly from the Darb wallet.

No tickets, no machines, no manual payments

The Free Flow Paid Parking System eliminates the need for SMS payments, QR codes, paper tickets, or parking machines.

It also removes cash transactions entirely, supporting faster, smoother, and more efficient parking operations across the city.

The initiative supports Abu Dhabi’s broader transition toward AI-enabled infrastructure and integrated digital mobility services.

By embedding parking payments within the Darb ecosystem, the system enhances operational efficiency while improving everyday user convenience.

Q Mobility emphasised that users must maintain sufficient balance in their Darb e-wallet before using the service to avoid fines and ensure seamless automatic payment processing.

Phased rollout across Abu Dhabi’s parking network

The rollout is part of Q Mobility’s ongoing strategy to expand smart parking solutions across Abu Dhabi, with gradual activation across selected city sectors and private parking facilities.

Officials said the system supports the emirate’s vision of a fully integrated digital mobility ecosystem aimed at improving accessibility and reducing urban congestion.

Industry observers note that the move reflects a wider regional shift toward contactless, cashless, and fully automated transport infrastructure.

The system will be introduced in phases as additional parking zones are upgraded to support AI-based recognition technology and full integration with the Darb platform.

In a major move for Abu Dhabi’s rental market, the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC) has announced a temporary measure freezing rent increases across all residential, commercial and industrial tenancy contract renewals.

In a post on X on Tuesday, ADREC said that all tenancy contract renewals will be processed at a 0 per cent increase for the duration of the measure.

“Your rent stays the same,” the regulator said in its announcement.

The measure also extends to new tenancy contracts signed for previously rented units. According to ADREC, any new tenancy contract on a previously rented property must be offered at the same rental value as the preceding contract.

The announcement marks a significant intervention in Abu Dhabi’s rental market, which has experienced sustained growth in recent years amid strong demand and rising real estate activity. The emirate launched its first residential rental index in 2024 to improve transparency and provide indicative rental values for tenants and landlords.

The development is expected to be closely watched by tenants, landlords, developers and property management companies, given its potential implications for rental yields, leasing activity and market dynamics across the emirate.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more details become available.

Binance has launched a fully regulated UAE dirham (AED) on- and off-ramp solution, enabling users in the UAE to move funds between traditional banking channels and digital assets through direct integration with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB).

The move marks a significant step in the maturation of the UAE’s digital asset ecosystem, providing users with regulated access to cryptocurrency markets while reducing transaction costs and operational friction associated with fiat-to-crypto transfers.

Under the new service, Binance users can deposit AED directly into their accounts through ADCB with zero fees, subject to a minimum transfer amount of Dhs10 and a maximum daily limit of Dhs7.2m. Withdrawals are also supported with what Binance described as some of the lowest fees in the market, with the same daily transaction limits applying.

The company said transactions are processed within the same business day and conducted entirely in AED, eliminating the need for foreign exchange conversions and reducing reliance on intermediaries.

The solution operates under the UAE’s Client Money Account framework and is designed to provide enhanced safeguards for user funds through regulated financial controls.

Binance said the launch is aimed at both existing cryptocurrency users and a growing number of investors seeking regulated exposure to digital assets as part of broader portfolio diversification strategies.

The company added that simplifying AED transfers is expected to lower barriers to entry for first-time crypto investors while improving efficiency for users operating across both traditional and digital financial markets.

Tarik Erk, head of MENAT and senior executive officer Abu Dhabi at Binance, said: “At its core, this is about trust meeting usability. For a long time, access to crypto required compromise, whether on cost, speed, or confidence. What we are introducing today changes that equation entirely. Users in the UAE can now move their money from their bank to crypto and back in a way that feels natural, regulated, and efficient. This is what real adoption looks like when infrastructure catches up with ambition.”

The launch comes as the UAE continues to position itself as a global hub for digital assets and blockchain innovation through the development of regulatory frameworks designed to support industry growth while maintaining investor protection standards.

Binance said the introduction of direct, regulated and cost-efficient fiat access represents a key milestone in the evolution of the local crypto market, which is increasingly shifting from early-stage experimentation towards broader institutional and retail adoption.

The company added that the combination of zero-fee deposits, low-cost withdrawals, direct banking integration and regulatory oversight establishes a new benchmark for how users in the UAE access and transact in digital assets.

Chatting with AI has become an increasingly common way for users to ask questions, solve problems, and seek information. Many of these interactions involve sensitive details, including financial, personal, health, or workplace data, raising ongoing concerns around privacy and data handling.

Read more-WhatsApp launches ‘Lists’ in UAE: What the new feature has to offer

Meta Platforms has positioned its latest feature as part of a broader effort to address those concerns, building on a decade of work in encrypted communications.

WhatsApp introduces Incognito Chat with Meta AI

In early May, WhatsApp launched Incognito Chat with Meta AI, a new feature that enables users to hold what the company describes as private conversations with its AI assistant. The system is built on Meta’s Private Processing technology, which the company says is designed to ensure that AI interactions remain inaccessible to third parties, information on a WhatsApp blog conveyed.

Meta said the feature is intended to extend privacy protections to AI-driven conversations, an area that has become increasingly central to messaging platforms.

“Incognito Chat with Meta AI is truly private — no one can read your conversation, not even us,” the company said in its announcement.

While other platforms have introduced similar “incognito-style” modes, Meta argues those systems may still allow some level of access to user inputs or outputs during processing.

How the feature works

According to Meta, when users initiate an Incognito Chat with Meta AI, they enter a temporary, private session that is only visible to them. Messages are processed in a secure environment that the company says it cannot access.

By default, chats are not saved, and messages are designed to disappear after use. Meta says this approach is intended to allow users to engage with AI without leaving behind a persistent data trail.

The company has framed the feature as part of its broader strategy to scale AI tools while maintaining user trust and privacy protections across its global messaging platforms.

Expansion plans and future features

Meta said Incognito Chat is part of a wider roadmap for integrating privacy-focused AI features into WhatsApp and its broader ecosystem.

In the coming months, the company plans to introduce “Side Chat,” a feature also protected by Private Processing. It will allow users to receive AI assistance within ongoing conversations, using contextual information from chats without interrupting the main thread.

Meta said the rollout of Incognito Chat with Meta AI will continue across WhatsApp and the Meta AI app over the coming months.

Further technical details on the underlying privacy infrastructure have been published here.

Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic has confidentially filed for a US initial public offering, the company said on Monday, edging ahead of rival OpenAI in a closely watched race to reach public markets.

The move sets up an early test of whether investor appetite for artificial intelligence, which has fueled lofty private valuations and talk of potential trillion-dollar listings, will hold up under public scrutiny, and which company gets to set the template for how the fast-growing sector is valued.

Anthropic, which makes agentic coding assistant Claude Code, did not disclose the size or the terms of the offering. It last raised $65bn at a post-money valuation of $965bn in late May, putting it ahead of OpenAI.

The listing would represent one of the most consequential stock market debuts in years, potentially reshaping benchmark indexes, investor flows, and the broader narrative driving U.S. equities.

Reuters reported in May that OpenAI was also preparing to confidentially file for a US IPO in the coming weeks. That follows SpaceX’s mega-IPO filing, which is on course to rewrite the record books as the Elon Musk-led company pursues a $75bn offering at a $1.75tn valuation and could begin trading within two weeks.

Confidential submissions let companies advance IPO preparations while shielding sensitive financial details from rivals and the public.

“Filing shortly after SpaceX allows Anthropic to capitalise on strong investor interest in AI and growth stocks while the window remains favourable,” Kat Liu, vice president at IPO research firm IPOX, said.

“Anthropic‘s valuation ambitions appear far less aggressive in comparison (to SpaceX) than they might have looked in isolation.”

Race for AI dominance

OpenAI and Anthropic have become the face of the AI boom that has redrawn corporate strategies, sparked a global arms race for computing power and talent, and turned AI-linked companies into some of the market’s most richly valued firms.

“For OpenAI, the conventional read is that Anthropic just seized the narrative advantage by filing first,” said Harrison Rolfes, a senior analyst at PitchBook. “The unconventional read is that OpenAI got the better end of this: Anthropic just volunteered to absorb all the disclosure risk first, and OpenAI now has a free option to watch how institutional investors react to audited frontier AI financials before committing to its own price.”

On prediction markets, where traders wager on the outcome of future events, most participants had expected OpenAI to file for an IPO before Anthropic.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a CNBC interview that he is not focused on the timing of a potential initial public offering for the ChatGPT maker, following news of Anthropic’s confidential filing.

He added that the company will go public when it makes sense to do so.

Anthropic‘s valuation has more ​than doubled from $380bn in February, when it raised $30bn in a funding round.

The company’s rapid rise in early 2026 rattled markets, triggering sharp selloffs in software and IT stocks as investors worried its increasingly autonomous AI tools could upend traditional business models and accelerate disruption across industries.

Its latest funding round drew backing from a mix of Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors, including Blackstone, Brookfield, D1 Capital Partners, GIC, General Catalyst and Insight Partners.

Read: launches Opus 4.8 alongside $65bn funding haul

A market milestone

As a slew of blockbuster listings races toward public markets, companies from SpaceX to AI giants are competing for a finite pool of investor capital.

Analysts, including D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria, said the two companies were racing to go public before capital on Wall Street ran out, and to set the agenda for how a frontier AI model – one that pushes the boundaries of what machines can do in language, reasoning, or coding – reports financials in a way that is favourable to their financial model.

“The combined demand for capital from SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic will be so considerable that it is likely to create disruptions in the capital markets, so going early will be a great advantage,” Luria said.

At a valuation of close to $1tn, Anthropic would vault to the top tier of the S&P 500, alongside a handful of elite companies that dominate global equity markets.

The IPO market has regained momentum in recent weeks, with companies raising $87.5bn through May 26, the highest year-to-date global total since 2021, according to Dealogic data.

Several sizable US IPOs are also set to hit the market later this week, including Honeywell-backed quantum computing firm Quantinuum, Blackstone-backed Liftoff and gas engine manufacturer Innio.