The interview on CNA 938’s “Work It” discusses the adoption of AI by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore. Although AI usage is growing globally, Singapore’s SMEs lag behind, with only 4% adopting AI technologies. The upcoming AI Festival 2025 aims to address this gap and encourage more businesses to embrace AI.
The discussion, featuring Kevin Sheperdson (CEO of Straits Interactive) and Ang Yuit (President of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises—ASME), explores AI’s potential to improve SMEs’ competitiveness, productivity, and innovation and the challenges they face. The interview also highlights efforts to assist SMEs in adopting AI, such as the AI Festival 2025 and the National AI Prompt Design Challenge.
Highlights
AI in SMEs
Cost and Expertise are major barriers to AI adoption for SMEs. AI presents opportunities for SMEs to innovate and become more competitive, especially by focusing on productivity and customer experience.
ASME and Straits Interactive are leading initiatives to help SMEs adopt AI, such as the upcoming AI Festival 2025 and National AI Prompt Design Challenge. Sustainable data governance is crucial for long-term AI success, focusing on safe, secure, and sustainable AI usage.
Low AI Adoption Among SMEs
While AI adoption is rapidly growing worldwide, only 4% of Singaporean SMEs use AI. Factors such as lack of expertise and resources are major obstacles to widespread AI implementation among SMEs.
AI as a Tool for Competitiveness:
- AI can help SMEs compete with larger corporations by improving cost efficiency, customer experience, and enabling competitive pricing.
- SMEs can adopt AI in ways that suit their agile and innovative nature, allowing them to introduce new products quickly and effectively. Events like AI Festival 2025 might serve as a catalyst for these efforts.
Challenges for SMEs
- Resource Constraints: SMEs often lack the financial and human resources to invest in AI.
- Expertise Gap: Many SMEs struggle to find the expertise necessary to set up AI operations.
- Taking the First Step: Ang It emphasizes the challenge of taking the first step towards AI adoption, despite government support and associations like ASME providing guidance and resources, including the AI Festival 2025.
AI Opportunities for SMEs
- Enhancing Productivity: Automating routine tasks (e.g., marketing, data entry) can significantly reduce labor costs and improve efficiency.
- Innovative Solutions: SMEs are encouraged to innovate with AI by creating value beyond basic applications (e.g., not just being consumers of AI tools like ChatGPT but developing unique solutions). The AI Festival 2025 will feature many such innovative solutions.
AI Festival 2025 and National AI Prompt Design Challenge
Additionally, AI Festival 2025 aims to promote collaboration among SMEs and showcase innovative uses of AI.
The National AI Prompt Design Challenge aims to equip participants with essential skills to design AI prompts, with the goal of making AI more accessible to SMEs. This challenge encourages SMEs to move beyond basic AI usage and apply it to enhance operational efficiency and innovation.
Sustainable Data Governance and AI
Kevin highlights the importance of sustainable data governance, especially in AI adoption. SMEs must manage data effectively and ethically, ensuring compliance with regulations like Singapore’s PDPA. Straits Interactive promotes the idea of integrating AI with a focus on value creation while acknowledging the risks and constraints of the technology. These concerns will likely be addressed at AI Festival 2025.
Support for SMEs
Organizations like ASME and Straits Interactive are actively supporting SMEs by providing workshops, training, and solutions to help them adopt AI effectively.
The AI Prompt Design Challenge and AI Festival 2025 are key initiatives aimed at giving SMEs a head start in AI adoption, helping them collaborate and learn from each other.
Highlights
Read the Chinese version here.
