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Microsoft, DISG launch AI agent accelerator programme
Microsoft and DISG’s programme will provide cloud credits, training and tools to local businesses as part of a national push to create ‘frontier firms’ where humans work alongside autonomous AI agents
Microsoft and Digital Industry Singapore (DISG) have launched launched an accelerator programme to help up to 300 Singapore-based businesses build and deploy agentic artificial intelligence (AI) systems, often described as a digital workforce.
The Agentic AI Accelerator programme, part of the government’s Enterprise Compute Initiative (ECI), aims to empower companies to become “frontier firms” where hybrid teams of humans and AI agents work together.
Over the next 12 months, participating businesses will receive a baseline support package of up to S$250,000 in Microsoft Azure cloud credits, AI training and tools. Select businesses with ambitious roadmaps may also receive up to S$700,000 in services from Microsoft to co-develop their agentic AI solutions. This complements the government’s existing support of up to S$105,000 per enterprise to cover consulting costs for setting up their own AI centres of excellence.
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can reason, plan and execute complex tasks with a high degree of autonomy, acting like digital team members. A recent Microsoft survey found that 82% of business leaders in Singapore plan to use such AI agents to scale their workforce capacity in the next 12 to 18 months.
Cynthia Yeo, acting managing director of Microsoft Singapore, said: “At Microsoft we see that frontier firms are the future – a new type of organisation where teams of humans and AI agents are working together, able to scale faster, move with greater agility and create value in new ways.”
She added that the combination of government support and Microsoft’s accelerator will “drive innovation and position Singapore to lead with AI”.
The initiative supports Singapore’s refreshed National AI Strategy 2.0, which aims to build a thriving AI ecosystem and encourage widespread adoption of the technology.
Speaking the launch event, Low Yen Ling, senior minister of state for trade and industry, described agentic AI as the “next frontier” that can help businesses with the “three As” – to assist workers to do their jobs better, augment processes and automate tasks. “If we can lean forward and use AI and, in this context, agentic AI, it can help us to really turbo-charge our capabilities,” she said.
Low-cited local tech firm Patsnap, founded in 2007, which uses agentic AI to help research and intellectual property teams search patents, compare them with competitors and summarise key trends in weekly reports, significantly reducing costs and boosting efficiency.
How firms are putting AI to work
At a panel discussion during the launch, industry leaders shared how their organisations are adopting AI, balancing innovation with responsibility.
Rajesh Sreenivasan, partner and head of technology, media and telecommunications at law firm Rajah & Tann, said the first step was organising the firm's vast repository of knowledge. “It’s not about which AI product to get, but about whether you’ve got your data sorted,” he said, explaining the firm’s efforts to build a proper legal precedent bank from decades of information scattered across different systems.
With its data foundation in place, Rajah & Tann developed specialised AI bots that can answer questions from clients about topics such as data protection and compliance for a subscription fee.
“We used to charge $10,000 to answer specific questions, but we’ve turned that into a subscription model where we charge $3,000 to $4,000 and you can ask as many questions as you want,” Sreenivasan said.
To address concerns about the use of client data, the firm created a detailed webpage on its responsible AI policies and notified nearly 8,000 clients about how their data will be used. “As lawyers, we have very strict confidentiality obligations – if any of the data gets compromised, our licence is at stake,” Sreenivasan said.
For technology services company NCS, embracing AI is an existential issue, said its chief scientist Ying Shao Wei. The company has used AI to increase its “developer velocity” and built a secure, in-house version of ChatGPT for its 14,000-strong workforce to boost productivity and foster experimentation.
Ying also noted the importance of creating AI that serves the community. He cited the MyResponder app, which NCS built for the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) to alert community first responders to nearby cardiac arrests or small fires.
“Imagine now with AI, we can better coordinate this whole network of volunteers, matching skills to the type of incident,” he said. “It is impossible for a human to manage and dispatch hundreds of volunteers, but AI can.”
Read more about AI in APAC
- Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates underscores AI’s transformative potential in healthcare, education and agriculture while highlighting the need to ensure its benefits reach lower-income nations.
- At the AWS Summit in Singapore, company executives and customers showcased how cloud and AI are enabling organisations to scale, transform and tackle business challenges.
- The AI Cloud Takeoff initiative, part of the Singapore government’s Enterprise Compute Initiative, will offer local firms up to S$500,000 in incentives to establish in-house AI centres of excellence and build AI capabilities.
- OCBC Bank rolls out a GenAI chatbot powered by Azure OpenAI to assist employees with writing, research and idea generation.
