#46 🚀 UOB AI Ready Programme: Empowering SMEs Across Southeast Asia for an AI-Powered Future #46 🚀 UOB AI Ready 计划：赋能东南亚中小企业，迈向人工智能驱动的未来

注意：华文刊文附加在英文文章的尾端。

On 8 July 2025, business leaders, innovators, and policymakers came together at Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay for the UOB AI Ready Programme, reaffirming UOB’s commitment to uplifting SMEs through innovation, digitalisation, and sustainability — a legacy a decade strong.

From spearheading women entrepreneurship mentorships in 2024 to leading SkillsFuture Queen Bee initiatives in 2025, UOB’s impact has been transformational across the Southeast Asia region — including Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and beyond.

🌐 Collaboration for Digital Transformation

Shannon L., Head of UOB FinLab & Ecosystem, set the tone with a clear message: UOB’s purpose is not just about finance, but future-readiness.

Johnson Poh from IMDA reinforced the national commitment to back such efforts, especially through the Digital Leaders Programme, helping businesses hire the right talent to build in-house AI and Gen-AI capabilities. One shining example is Lumens, a car rental company enhancing customer experience and vehicle maintenance through AI.

Paul Kan, Head of Business Banking, shared that over 6 in 10 businesses have successfully digitalised. Yet, as Gen Z and younger generations bring higher expectations to the workplace, transformation must go beyond technology—it must include people.

🔍 Self-Assessment, Proof-of-Concept & Co-Creation

Eelen Lim introduced AI Readiness self-assessment tools available through UOB FinLab. With just a problem statement, manpower, and data, SMEs can gain co-creation support—including funding—to trial and validate real AI use cases.

🤖 What Does It Really Take to Be AI Ready?

In a compelling session, Laurence Liew from AI Singapore (AISG) laid out the AISG Five Pillars:

AI Research – Strengthening SG’s place in the global AI race
AI Technology – Sector-wide applied research
AI Innovation – Enabling widespread adoption
AI Products – Building catalytic, scalable tools
AI Governance – Ensuring ethics, fairness, and accountability

Real-world examples such as Q&M Dental, supported by 1 engineer and 3 apprentices, saw queue times halved in 7 months. A psychology major turned HR manager led the AI effort and now pursues a PhD in AI—showing AI talent can come from any background.

💡 From Clean Data to Real ROI

Boon Sing from Microsoft emphasised that “Good AI needs Clean Data.” For every $1 invested in Gen AI, the ROI is 3.7x. But the mindset shift is crucial — Gen AI isn’t just a tool for ROI, it’s a solution for repetitive processes and scaling impact.

Top Gen AI Use Cases:

Summarisation
Q&A
Data-driven decisioning
Personalisation
Automation

Agentic AI, the next evolution, is around the corner:

50% of companies will deploy pilots by 2027
15% of decisions will be made by AI autonomously by 2028

🧠 What Can AI Agents Do?

From IT Helpdesk agents to Budget Management agents, and more complex roles like Sales Order agents and Testing agents, AI agents today collaborate to solve tasks like:

“Onboard 5 employees by Monday”

This represents a leap from yesterday’s RPA and chatbots to today’s multi-agent collaboration with human oversight.

🗣️ Final Panel Thoughts

Moderated by Alvin Eng, the panel discussion included:

Sun Zhibo (Lumens)
Sachi Hfridayraj (iNext Labs)
Shaik Umar (IMDA)
Don Ho (Nanyang Inc, tentage and events company)

They highlighted the challenges of high cost, data quality, and workforce expectations—but also the tremendous upside of structured AI enablement.

Don Ho, thanked the organizer and shared from his perspective of event organisers who are always first to arrive and last to leave, ensuring everything and everyone is taken care of, while sharing traditional SMEs can continue to stay relevant by adapting to AI and Gen AI capabilities through business owners’ own exploration to gain confidence before cascading their personal experience to their staff.

The Moderator and Panelists for the day.

🎯 Final Word from UOB

Janet Young, Managing Director, reminded us that the AI journey is ultimately about impact and return. With the right guidance, structure, and data, SMEs can unlock 3.7x ROI from Gen AI and transform their workforce, operations, and customer experience.

So what’s your next step? Align AI with your business priorities. Get your data in shape. Start small, but start now.

🔗 #AIReady #UOBFinLab #GenAI #AISG #DigitalTransformation #SMEs #AgenticAI #WomenInTech #SoutheastAsiaInnovation

For a bilingual coverage as well as the complete experience of the event, including more photos and individual portrait shots, please scroll down to the Chinese version of the article below.

This article is also published on LinkedIn.

📸 此刊文也发布在领英社交媒体。

🚀 UOB AI Ready Programme：赋能东南亚中小企业，迈向AI驱动的未来

2025年7月8日，企业领袖、创新者与政策制定者齐聚滨海湾PARKROYAL酒店，共同见证 UOB AI Ready Programme 的举行，展现了大华银行（UOB）持续十年对中小企业的坚定承诺：推动创新、数码化与可持续发展。

从2024年女性创业者导师计划到2025年SkillsFuture “女王蜂”计划，UOB的努力已在新加坡、马来西亚、越南等东南亚市场开花结果。

🌐 数字化转型的合作力量

UOB FinLab与生态系统负责人 Shannon Lung 开场指出：UOB的使命不仅仅是金融，更是未来导向。

IMDA助理首席执行官 Johnson Poh 表示政府全力支持此计划，Digital Leaders Programme协助企业聘请合适人才，打造内部AI与生成式AI能力。例如 Lumens（汽车租赁企业）通过AI优化客户体验与车辆维护，形成成果导向的AI转型模型，有助于建立更具竞争力的商业生态系统。

UOB新加坡企业银行负责人 Paul Kan 提到，超过六成企业已经成功数码化。然而，Z世代与年轻员工对工作的期望更高，企业必须转型以吸引与留住人才。