The share of Singapore enterprises using agentic AI tools more than doubled to 51 percent in 2026 from 22 percent a year earlier, according to an annual survey by the United States-based workflow software firm ServiceNow.
In a statement on Monday, ServiceNow said its study, ServiceNow’s Enterprise AI Maturity Index, found that the largest group of Singapore firms, 33 percent, use AI to assist individual employees with day-to-day tasks. 18 percent reported no progress on advanced AI adoption, above the global average of 11 percent. Singapore’s overall AI maturity score rose 19 points to 53 out of 100, above the global average of 51 and recovering from 34 in 2025.
Only 10 percent have used the technology to redesign processes so that AI completes multi-step tasks end to end, ServiceNow added.
ServiceNow conducted the survey with the research firm ThoughtLab, polling 4,500 senior leaders across 19 countries, including 200 in Singapore.
The report said AI budgets in Singapore rose 108 percent year-on-year, close to the global figure of 110 percent, with 15.4 percent of IT budgets now allocated to AI. Enterprises projecting a further 83 percent increase next year.
It said Singapore was ahead of global peers on structural foundations, including replacing legacy systems (23 percent versus 16 percent globally) and putting formal AI risk processes in place (28 percent versus 20 percent). Data privacy and security was cited as a top AI challenge by 58 percent of Singapore enterprises.
CK Tan, ServiceNow’s Asia-Pacific and Japan innovation officer, said helping individuals work faster had value but redesigning workflow within organizations with AI can change business outcomes. “Adoption and transformation are not the same thing,” he said, adding that the next wave of investment should go into redesigning workflows rather than into more tools.
Peter Carr, director and principal analyst at Councilio, said Singapore had largely resolved the question of AI adoption. Organizations can pull ahead by embedding AI into their existing investment and portfolio-management processes.
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