Singapore agentic AI adoption doubled in 2026, with 10% of enterprises already redesigning how work gets done

New ServiceNow study finds most Singapore enterprises are using AI to assist individuals, while a leading cohort has already crossed into autonomous, end-to-end workffow transformation.

• Singapore's AI maturity score rose 19 points to 53 out of 100 in 2026, above the global average of 51, recovering from a low of 34 in 2025.
• Agentic AI adoption among Singapore enterprises more than doubled from 22% in 2025 to 51% in 2026, with 10% already using it to create autonomous, end-to-end workflows.
• Singapore leads the global average on six of seven AI maturity dimensions, but trails on AI-enabled workflows - the pillar that converts investment into business returns.

Singapore - 17 August 2026 - The annual Enterprise AI Maturity Index by ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), which surveyed 4,500 senior leaders across 19 countries including 200 in Singapore, finds that adoption of agentic AI tools has more than doubled among Singapore enterprises in a single year, from 22% to 51%.

Agentic AI tools are those capable of taking actions without human input at each step. The data reveals how enterprises are using those tools matters as much as whether they have them. The largest group (33%) are using AI to assist individual employees with day-to-day tasks. One in ten (10%) has redesigned processes where AI completes multi-step business tasks end-to-end. A further 18% have made no progress on advanced AI adoption at all, above the global average of 11%. This divide mirrors Budget 2026's warning that Singapore must move "beyond individual pilots and isolated experiments" to see economy-wide impact.

Singapore's own data from the prior year shows that enterprises which redesigned their work processes entirely around AI were nearly four times more likely to report significant productivity and efficiency gains than those that simply added AI on top of how they already worked. The data shows exactly what crossing to the right side is worth.

Meanwhile, Singapore's overall AI maturity score has rebounded strongly, jumping 19 points to 53 out of 100, above the global average of 51 and ahead of Singapore's own 2024 peak of 45.

"Singapore enterprises have rebuilt important foundations for AI and that progress is showing up in the numbers," said CK Tan, APJ Innovation Officer, ServiceNow. "But adoption and transformation are not the same thing. Helping individuals work faster has value. Redesigning how work moves across the enterprise is where AI starts to change business outcomes."

Standard Chartered is among a growing number of organisations redefining how AI is applied in the workplace. Rather than layering AI onto existing processes, the Bank reimagined the colleague onboarding journey end to end, creating an experience that is simpler, faster, and more connected. The Bank mapped each step of the process, determining what genuinely required human judgement and where technology could add the greatest value. Roles, workflows, and responsibilities were then redesigned accordingly. The transformation is expected to reduce onboarding effort for Hiring Managers by 35% while delivering approximately 20% productivity gains across HR teams.

"Long before we deployed AI, we invested in understanding our people, their relationship with technology, appetite for change, and familiarity with AI both inside and outside the workplace," said Melinda McKinley, Chief Operating Officer, Strategy and Talent, Standard Chartered. "That research shaped what came next. When you know where friction exists and why, you can apply automation and AI with precision. The goal is not to layer new technology onto existing challenges, but to redesign experiences in ways that genuinely improve how work gets done for both colleagues and clients."

AI budgets have surged and the next phrase is converting it into enterprise value

Singapore's AI investment trajectory is tracking closely with the global average, with budgets up 108% year-on-year (vs. 110% globally) and 15.4% of IT budgets now allocated to AI (vs. 15.8% globally), both projected to reach approximately 20% by 2027. Enterprises here are projecting a further 83% increase in AI spend next year, marginally ahead of the global projection of 81%.

On the structural foundations of that investment, Singapore is ahead of global peers. More enterprises here have replaced legacy technology systems with modern platforms (23% vs. 16% globally), more have put formal processes in place for testing, auditing and managing AI risk (28% vs. 20%), and more are already integrating AI workflows across business functions (25% vs. 16% globally). These are the investments that the global study identifies as prerequisites for AI that delivers reliably at scale.

The area where returns compound most is embedding AI into day-to-day operations. This pillar remains the most untapped potential for value creation and competitive advantage for enterprises in Singapore. Singapore leads the global average on six of seven dimensions, with talent readiness being its widest margin at three points. The one exception is the dimension that measures whether all of that investment and intent has been built into how the business actually runs. The 17-point gap between Singapore's strongest score and its weakest is the precise distance between having the right foundations for AI and having an organisation that operates on it.

"Singapore is investing at almost the same pace as the global average," Tan added. "The issue is where the next dollar goes. 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."

A deliberate rebuild of Singapore's AI maturity score that produced a stronger recovery

Singapore's 2026 AI maturity score marks a return to form that goes beyond a confidence rebound, following an 11-point drop to a low of 34 in 2025. Singapore came back stronger than the 2024 peak and above the global average.

The recovery is structural. The progress on legacy system modernisation and AI risk processes points to enterprises that used the difficult year to address underlying gaps rather than simply wait for conditions to improve. These findings align with Budget 2026's focus on scaling AI beyond pilots through national-level coordination. This shows that Singapore enterprises are rebuilding the foundation before the policy asked them to.

An area of concern is data privacy and security with 58% of local enterprises citing it as a top AI challenge. This points to a gap between the framework the government has built and the readiness of enterprises to operate within it as most enterprises are still working through the practical challenges of implementing AI. The findings also raise questions about how quickly Singapore enterprises can translate strong AI foundations into measurable productivity gains.

"The governance framework Singapore has built is genuinely world-leading," Tan said. "What the data shows is that most enterprises are still working toward what it asks of them. Getting the right oversight and risk processes in place before AI systems are operating at scale is the most important step Singapore enterprises can take right now."

Tan Kit Yong, Chief Regional Enterprise, StarHub said, "The conversation has shifted from AI adoption to AI execution. Enterprises are discovering that AI only delivers lasting value when it is built on trusted digital infrastructure, unified data platform and strong governance. At StarHub, we're helping organisations modernise these foundations so they can embed AI into critical workflows, automate with confidence and achieve measurable business value at scale."

Peter Carr, Director and Principal Analyst, Councilio commented, "Singapore has largely solved the question of AI adoption. The organisations that pull ahead from here will be those that integrate and prioritise AI through their established investment and portfolio management frameworks. These disciplines have long underpinned the nation's success in digital transformation. The opportunity now is systematically embedding it into the existing work of the enterprise."

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About the Study

To measure the current state of AI maturity in the enterprise, ServiceNow - in partnership with ThoughtLab - surveyed 4,500 senior leaders, including 200 from Singapore. We developed a proprietary indexing model to identify how leading organisations are putting AI to work effectively. See the Singapore fact sheet here and the global report here.

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is the AI control tower for business reinvention. The ServiceNow AI Platform integrates with any cloud, any model, and any data source to orchestrate how work flows across the enterprise. By unifying legacy systems, departmental tools, cloud applications, and AI agents, ServiceNow provides a single pane of glass that connects intelligence to execution across every corner of business. With more than 85 billion workflows running on the platform each year, ServiceNow helps organizations turn fragmented operations into coordinated, autonomous workflows that deliver measurable results. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at https://www.servicenow.com.

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