Industrial Research Unit · Straits Institute for Applied AI
Applied AI in Panama
Panama's entries are its airport and its cabinet — an AI guide for passengers at Tocumen, and a National AI Strategy approved by the Consejo de Gabinete in 2026.
Your essential monthly update on Applied AI, with Panama specially tracked.
Services 70% · Industry 24.9% · Agriculture 2.6% of gross value added — World Bank, 2025
Compare with
Filters
Narrow the 10 entries from Panama by what it is, the industry and the job it changes.
Kind
Industry
Role
10 entries
Government & Public Sector
5
The cabinet has approved Panama's National AI Strategy, coordinated by SENACYT.
DeploymentGovernment & Public SectorPanama3 Sep 2026
Panama's government portal adds an AI chatbot for 311 reports
Panamá Conecta / Centro de Atención Ciudadana 311 — Panamá Conecta, the Panamanian government's single public-services portal, now has an AI government chatbot for fast reports to the 311 Citizen Attention Centre. The 311 platform also offers live chat with a contact-centre agent.
Proyecto de Ley 588 de gobernanza adaptativa de la inteligencia artificial
Asamblea Nacional de Panamá — The National Assembly passed Bill 588, an adaptive-governance Panama AI regulation, in third debate, sending it to the Executive for presidential sanction. The AI rules rank systems across four impact levels (low, moderate, high, critical) with matching transparency, oversight and safeguard duties. SENACYT chairs a National Commission for Regulatory Experimentation; high-impact decisions need human oversight, and public entities must embed design-to-deployment safeguards.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorPanama12 Aug 2026
Panama approves its National AI Strategy
Consejo de Gabinete / SENACYT — Panama's Cabinet Council has approved the National AI Strategy through Resolution 89-26, drafted under SENACYT, setting objectives, programmes and priorities for ethical, responsible, inclusive and secure AI and aiming to make the country a trusted AI innovation hub in Latin America. The resolution works as a policy roadmap: it adds no testing, certification or product-authorisation requirements, and ASEP equipment homologation stays as it is.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorPanama17 Jun 2026
Panama's Amber Alert decree promotes AI in searches for missing children
Government of Panama (Executive Decree No. 11 of 2026) — Panama's Executive Decree No. 11 of 17 June 2026 regulates the national Amber Alert system, implementing Law 469 of 2025 with responsibilities, procedures, response times and agency coordination. It promotes AI in missing-child searches with mobile apps, CCTV, video analysis and geolocation, and creates an Early Activation Office for reports, case assessment and alerts.
RegulationGovernment & Public SectorPanama7 May 2026
Decreto Ejecutivo No. 36 que crea la Subcomisión de Inteligencia Artificial
Ministerio de la Presidencia de Panamá — Panama AI policy gains a permanent Artificial Intelligence Subcommission, led by SENACYT's National Secretary, via Executive Decree No. 36. A National Commission for Critical and Emerging Technologies must bring a National AI Strategy before the Cabinet Council for sign-off. Gazetted 8 May 2026 (No. 30520-A), this AI governance measure deems critical and emerging technologies strategic priorities.
The judicial training institute trains court staff with ISJUP IA, an AI study assistant.
DeploymentEducation & TrainingPanama8 Oct 2026
Panama equips public-school teachers with 54,000 offline AI laptops
Ministry of Education (Meduca) — The Ministry of Education (Meduca) is handing out 54,000 Copilot+ PCs, AI laptops for teachers that run language models locally with no internet link. Staff can draft tests, revision sheets and lesson outlines and design visuals in Intel AI Playground. So far 28,585 units are formally accepted and 25,415 outstanding under a $26,619,300 contract (before ITBMS) won by assembler ISGroup, or $492.95 each. Panama wants every state-sector educator on these offline teaching computers, remote schools first.
Panama's judicial training institute launches an AI study assistant
Instituto Superior de la Judicatura de Panamá (ISJUP), Órgano Judicial — Panama's judicial training institute, the Instituto Superior de la Judicatura (ISJUP), launched ISJUP IA, an AI study assistant for judicial staff and legal professionals' ongoing training. Curriculum designers, teachers and students can use the virtual assistant to consult course content, settle legal questions and find study materials.
Evidence of adoptionBusiness OperationsPanama21 Sep 2026
AI use reaches 24.2% of Panama's working-age population, Microsoft finds
Microsoft AI Economy Institute (Global AI Diffusion Report Q2 2026) — AI adoption in Panama reached 24.2% of 15-to-64-year-olds by June 2026, 0.9 points above 23.3% in Q1, against 18.8% worldwide. Microsoft's Global AI Diffusion study derives that generative AI use estimate from pooled, anonymised telemetry, corrected for operating-system and device mix, connectivity and headcount.
The health ministry is piloting VANESSA, an AI WhatsApp bot for dengue reports.
DeploymentHealthcare & Life SciencesPanama8 Jan 2026
Panama pilots an AI WhatsApp bot for dengue surveillance
Ministerio de Salud de Panamá (Minsa) — Panama's Ministry of Health is piloting VANESSA, an AI dengue surveillance platform, for six months in San Miguelito. Phase one is a WhatsApp bot where residents report suspected dengue cases and mosquito breeding sites with location, photos and text, backed by regional health-promotion, epidemiology, environmental-sanitation and vector-control teams.
Tocumen International Airport has launched an AI guide for passengers.
DeploymentTransport & LogisticsPanama21 Aug 2026
Panama's Tocumen airport launches an AI guide for passengers
Tocumen International Airport — Tocumen International Airport's rebuilt digital platform features Tocumín, an AI airport assistant that tells a traveller at gate 115 how long the walk to gate 205 takes and the route, alongside retail, parking, connection and flight details. Tocumen S.A.'s in-house team built the wayfinding assistant in about 18 months; biometric access to travel information is due in 2027. The airport handled 13.7 million passengers from January to July 2026, 15 per cent up on a year earlier.
Your essential monthly update on Applied AI, with Panama specially tracked
We research and keep track of applied AI globally. Panama's record gained 1 entry in October. Your next dispatch will open with Panama, then the most important news about how AI is being used, applied and regulated globally.
One edition a month. Unsubscribe from any of them.
Method and sources
Every entry on this page is a named organisation putting AI to work in a real job, taken from the State of Applied AI record. Each one is traced to the report it came from and dated, and where a figure is the organisation’s own the entry says so rather than presenting it as an independent result. Readiness, ecosystem and policy figures, where shown, are attributed on the card to the body that published them.
The record is maintained continuously by the Industrial Research Unit of the Straits Institute for Applied AI: entries are added as they are found and verified, not on a schedule, and nothing is published without an open source behind it. It currently holds 4731 entries across 249 countries.