Artificial intelligence is not simply another wave of innovation. It is part of the most profound shift in how we live and work for decades.
Many assume that as AI becomes more powerful, human skills become less important. I believe the opposite is true – in fact, recent IWG research found that the majority of HR leaders believe that failing to prioritize human skills actually jeopardises innovation. The more capable AI becomes, the greater the premium on creativity, judgement and entrepreneurial thinking.
The pace of change is extraordinary. I have spoken before about the rapidly accelerating velocity of business, but what we are seeing today is even more rapid than anyone first thought. Bill Gates once said that, of all human inventions, AI will do most to change society. Early signs suggest he may be right.
Entire job functions are being reshaped in real time, while new ones are emerging just as quickly. Forward-thinking governments around the world are investing in infrastructure and skills in anticipation of what is coming. Singapore is engineering a future-oriented economy, driven by a strong commitment to build an AI-fluent workforce. The country has pledged $1 billion to advance AI research capabilities and talent development between 2025 and 2030. It is also fast becoming a global hub for AI innovation and talent, drawing in tech giants such as OpenAI and Google, both of which have established a local presence.
Infrastructure and policy set the stage, but what gets built on top of it is ours to decide – and we are at a crossroads. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a business Utopia, and it will require the very best creative talent to design it.
Change is now measured in weeks and months
I have witnessed several technological revolutions over six decades in business. When computers first entered the workplace, the pace of change accelerated to levels never seen before.
New roles were created, others disappeared, productivity rose, and entirely new industries emerged. AI will follow a similar path, but at a speed and scale unlike anything we have seen before. Singapore’s job market is already shifting. According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM),13.9 percent of surveyed firms have created new AI-related jobs. Additionally, new data from PwC revealed that job postings requiring AI-related skills jumped to 84,000 in 2025, a significant spike from 54,000 in 2024.
To understand what’s happening now, it is worth looking back. In the 1970s, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors on a chip doubled roughly every two years, a principle that became known as Moore’s Law.
His insight was simple but powerful: progress is not linear; it is exponential. Incremental improvements can quickly become dramatic leaps forward.
Today, that cycle has accelerated again. Change is no longer measured in years, but in weeks and months.
For decades, businesses accumulated vast amounts of data, but much of it remained unused, trapped in silos or analysed long after decisions had been made. AI changes that. It dramatically narrows the gap between insight and action, allowing organisations to move from hindsight to real-time decision-making.
This shift is already beginning to reshape how decisions are made across industries.
Advertising engines generate bespoke creative tailored to individual behaviour in real time, while in healthcare, hyper-personalised treatment plans are increasingly being informed by AI analysis.
This is where the real significance of AI lies. It is not simply making existing processes more efficient. It is changing the speed at which businesses learn, adapt and compete.
Why creativity becomes more valuable, not less
As AI becomes more capable, many fear it will diminish the value of human contribution. In reality, it does the opposite.
AI makes information abundant. It makes analysis faster. It makes execution cheaper and more accessible.
When information becomes abundant, insight becomes valuable. When analysis becomes automated, judgement becomes scarce. And when execution becomes instantaneous, creativity becomes the ultimate competitive advantage.
Technology alone does not transform businesses. People do.
AI’s greatest strength is not replacing human thinking, but extending it. It can identify patterns, surface connections and generate possibilities at remarkable speed. But it still relies on creative people to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions and turn ideas into something meaningful.
Interestingly, creativity is not the first quality Singaporeans tend to claim for themselves. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong noted with good humour in his 2024 National Day Rally Speech that “we have never had the reputation for being creative. Passing exams, yes, but being creative, not so.” He raised it to share a pleasant surprise: in the OECD’s first assessment of creative thinking, Singapore’s students had ranked first in the world.
This matters as creativity is at the core of Singapore’s efforts to progress as a nation, including its advancements as an AI and innovation hub. For instance, it serves as a key testbed for emerging technologies and is home to various sandboxes for AI testing, including the Global AI Assurance Sandbox and the AI Agents Sandbox. This kind of work is more creative than it might appear: testing tools that no one has used before means figuring out how they might go wrong, designing ways to push their limits, and developing safeguards for situations with little precedent. It is in environments like these that human creativity, alongside technical skill, will help shape how AI is rolled out safely and what we do next.
After all, AI itself is a product of human creativity. It is trained on human knowledge, guided by human intent and applied to human problems. In fact, AI can enhance creativity and idea generation – a skill that 77 percent of Singapore employers believe will be augmented by AI in the next year.
The organizations that unlock the greatest value from AI will be those with the most imaginative people, capable of applying that technology in new and useful ways.
When young workers marvel at what AI can do, rather than fear it, it fuels the curiosity that drives innovation. Curiosity has always been the starting point of progress. This curiosity is already visible in how Singapore workers use AI – starting from home. The Straits Times profiled a young father who used natural language prompts on an AI tool to build an app that tracked his baby’s daily activities and milestones. Through the process, he picked up AI prompting skills, which he was then able to apply at work.
Why access to talent matters and geography no longer does
This shift has direct implications for how businesses compete.
In a world where creativity and adaptability carry greater weight, access to the right talent becomes critical.
Recent IWG research shows that 37 percent of businesses now cite convenience of location as their primary strategy for attracting talent, ahead of pay at 35 percent. This reflects a simple reality: in an AI-driven economy, businesses cannot afford to wait for talent. They need access to it quickly, wherever they are.
I want people starting tomorrow. I do not want to wait for them to relocate from Houston to New York.
Technology allows work to happen anywhere, but innovation still depends on people. The businesses that can access the broadest and most diverse pool of creative talent will be the businesses that move the fastest.
In that sense, geography is becoming less important than connectivity. Success will increasingly belong to organisations that can bring together the right minds, regardless of where they happen to be located.
Building a business utopia
AI is not an incremental change. It is a fundamental reset of how work is organised, delivered and measured – and it will reshape work; that is inevitable. But rather than reducing the importance of human creativity, it will increase it.
That starts with mindset: encouraging curiosity, rewarding experimentation and giving people the confidence to explore what these tools can do.
Ultimately, the future of work will not be built by AI alone.
The winners in the AI era will not be the organisations with the most technology. They will be the organisations with the most creative people, empowered by the best technology, creating the potential for a true business utopia.
AI is set to become ubiquitous. Creativity will remain rare.
And in business, rarity is what creates value.
Mark Dixon was appointed as Executive Chair on 16 June 2026. He founded IWG in 1989 and, over four decades as Chief Executive Officer, he built the Company into the global leader in flexible workspace, with a network spanning more than 120 countries through brands such as Regus, Spaces, HQ, and Signature. As Executive Chair, he will continue to provide strategic guidance to the Board and act as an adviser to the CEO.
Mark is one of Europe’s best-known entrepreneurs. He has achieved a formidable reputation for leadership and innovation and is the recipient of many awards for enterprise. He is widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of the workspace industry who revolutionised the way business approaches its property needs with his vision of the future of work.
Prior to IWG he established businesses in the retail and wholesale food industry.
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Featured image: Agustin Fernandez on Unsplash
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