Agentic AI adoption in Singapore has more than doubled, reshaping job roles
Employees in Singapore are increasingly finding themselves in a new role of directing digital agents that can work for them, despite their job titles not yet catching up.
"AI is changing job content much faster than it's changing job titles," said Audrey Chan, executive director and head of human resources practice at Kerry Consulting.
Chan told Channel News Asia (CNA) that employers are increasingly prioritising workers who can apply AI to improve productivity and rethink processes.
The observation comes as agentic AI adoption in Singapore more than doubled in 2026, with 51% of organisations deploying the technology, up from 22% in 2025, according to a ServiceNow global poll that included 200 Singapore business leaders.
A separate survey by SAP across 200 firms, also reported by CNA, found that 92% were exploring or already using agentic AI, up from 69% last year.
Human judgement still key
Ong Zhi Chuan, a senior manager in assurance at EY, told CNA that the change can already be felt, pointing out that he can direct AI agents with just a few clicks to analyse working papers while he shifts his attention elsewhere.
"That takes about three minutes to run the analysis that my staff has given me, as compared to if I'm to review (the documents) in detail, (it) will probably take two hours," he told the news outlet.
But the expanded use of AI agents has not diminished the importance of human oversight. EY Singapore's head of assurance Lee Wei Hock told CNA that professional judgement remains non-negotiable.
"The tolerance for error arising from AI hallucination is very thin. In fact, it's almost non-existent," he said.
SAP Singapore's managing director Eileen Chua framed the core skill requirement as what she calls AI bilingualism, fluency in both one's profession and in AI.
"AI has crossed a very important threshold, that it is no longer a tool that employees use on the side. Rather, it's becoming more and more embedded into the core processes that run businesses. So that's really been the big shift," she said.
Adoption outpacing execution
Despite the surge in adoption, many Singapore organisations have yet to move beyond surface-level use.
The ServiceNow report found that only 10% of employers have redesigned processes where AI completes multi-step business tasks end-to-end, while a third are using it only to assist employees with day-to-day tasks.
CK Tan, APJ Innovation Officer at ServiceNow, said the focus of investment needs to shift.
"Singapore is ahead on foundations, but weaker on embedding AI into daily operations. If the next wave of investment goes mainly into tools rather than workflow redesign, the maturity gap will widen instead of close," he said.
