Employees continue to bear the brunt of an increasing workload in the face of increased economic uncertainty in Singapore and around the world. Almost a third of employees in Singapore indicated feeling extremely or very burnt out, up from 26% in 2023, according to a recent UiPath survey.
Amid growing workforce fatigue, generative AI (Gen AI) is emerging as an antidote that helps relieve stress and enhance employee productivity. And it appears to be here to stay: employees are already embracing the change, with 60% of workers in Singapore using Gen AI at work, the highest usage rate globally alongside Hong Kong.
With Gen AI becoming a norm in workplaces, how then can organizations integrate Gen AI into their operations to unlock greater efficiencies, ignite creativity, and ultimately reshape more innovative employee and customer experiences?
A golden age of productivity
It is evident that Gen AI has a more profound impact than any technology that has come before it. Gen AI’s impact on productivity is transformative – with organizations across industries experiencing efficiency gains and unlocking new avenues for business growth. Take for instance MongoDB, whose finance team previously reviewed several hundred order forms quarterly to ensure that both customer and MongoDB signatures were present. After deploying document understanding and Gen AI, the MongoDB’s finance team was able to automate this validation process, eliminating the need for manual checks.
By automating routine and monotonous tasks, Gen AI also provides workers more time to focus on the thoughtful and creative aspects of work. Among Singaporean workers who saved time on work-related tasks using Gen AI, over half were able to spend more time on creative tasks. With the time saved, about half of these workers were also able to spend time with their family and end their workday earlier.
This emerging productivity paradigm could mark an era in which the value of work is measured by the possibilities for collaboration between humans and AI, and the collective ability to innovate and solve complex problems at unprecedented scales.
Building a business strategy that can adapt to the future of work
Against this backdrop, it is critical for organizations to begin future-proofing their strategies for agility and adaptability. This journey starts with acknowledging that AI is merely half the equation.
The other half lies in automation. Automation is a crucial piece of the puzzle that provides AI with the integrations, data, context and ability to take action in the enterprise. While the majority of Singaporean workers (65%) are not using Gen AI and business automation together, those who are have seen greater productivity gains. By utilizing both technologies, one in two Singaporean workers have seen greater productivity and the ability to get tasks done faster, and close to half of them have seen an improved work-life balance.
With all the benefits that Gen AI brings, however, there are still concerns about the shortcomings and risks around the technology. Generally, workers are most concerned about security risks, inaccurate output, and compliance risks when using Gen AI. At the same time, they are also experiencing a lack of direction around company policy on the use of Gen AI tools, as 42% of workers indicated that their company has not offered any training or guidelines on how to use Gen AI.
As more businesses embrace Gen AI to boost productivity, it’s equally crucial that they cultivate trustworthy, adaptable, and flexible AI approaches to put AI at work more effectively. Since recent technologies often progress too quickly for policymakers to keep pace, the onus falls on creators and users to help ensure the ethical use of AI based on the principles of openness, flexibility, and responsibility. This also means incorporating guardrails and mechanisms to mitigate risks such as privacy concerns, bias, and data security.
Rethinking and redesigning work for the Gen AI age
The age of AI is already upon us, and it’s not just automating tasks—it’s reshaping how we work. Employees will increasingly find themselves collaborating with Gen AI systems so that they can focus on higher-value, strategic work. Today, 58% of workers in Singapore believe Gen AI tools already have the context needed from their organization′s own data to support business processes and drive value. But the right guidance will still be necessary to maximize this potential. For instance, there needs to be greater awareness around how off-the-shelf Gen AI models may struggle with industry-specific nuances or real-world applications, and potentially require additional resources for data collection and performance evaluation. This underscores the criticality of integrating Gen AI with other models such as Specialized AI – which is trained to handle task-specific datasets – to surpass the limitations of large foundational models trained on general knowledge.
Sustainable AI adoption will ultimately hinge on addressing skill gaps, fostering trust in AI, and forging strategic private-public partnerships that can prepare the workforce to embrace rapid innovation and digital transformation. Only then can we ensure a workforce is prepared to thrive in the future of work.
About the author
Jess O’Reilly is Area Vice President for Asia at UiPath. Based in Singapore, Jess is responsible for driving go-to-market strategy and growth, expanding customer and strategic partner engagements for UiPath across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea to help organizations unlock the power of automation and drive innovation. Jess is passionate about partnering with tech developers and business executives to challenge the status quo.
