‘What matters is whether SMEs can put AI to good use’: Josephine Teo

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) aims for at least 70 per cent of pre-approved digital solutions to be AI-enabled within two years.

As of Oct. 13, 55 per cent of the pre-approved solutions on IMDA’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) Go Digital platform are AI-enabled, exceeding an earlier target of 50 per cent.

SME adoption of these AI-enabled solutions increased by close to 20 per cent year-on-year from 2025 to 2026.

Speaking at SMEs Go Digital Day 2026 on Oct. 13, Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo said increasing adoption was encouraging, but was not the end goal.

“What matters is whether SMEs can put AI to good use,” Teo said.

She said the aim was for SMEs to use AI to serve more customers, innovate faster, enter new markets and compete with larger companies.

More than 100 AI tools curated for SMEs

Teo acknowledged that the growing number of AI tools could make it difficult for SMEs to determine which ones were suitable for their businesses.

IMDA has curated more than 100 global AI tools on its SMEs Go Digital platform across business functions including customer relationship management and marketing automation, content creation, workplace collaboration, finance and operations.

Examples include Canva, DeepSeek, Lovable and Notion.

Teo said the list was intended to help SMEs “cut through a crowded AI marketplace”, and would be continually refreshed as new tools became proven and available.

A new Pre-approved Solutions Package Builder will also allow SMEs to customise solution packages, add-ons and training support according to their operational needs.

Up to 10,000 SMEs to get free access to Space

IMDA also announced new industry partnerships aimed at addressing different barriers SMEs may face when adopting AI.

Under the Stack-EZ AI Data Enablement Programme, up to 10,000 SMEs will receive six months of complimentary access to Space, an AI-powered document management solution that automatically classifies and organises business documents such as contracts, invoices and receipts.

The platform is intended to help SMEs organise unstructured information and build a stronger data foundation to make better use of AI tools.

Each participating SME can have up to five users, with 200GB of cloud storage for an estimated 20,000 documents.

In the coming months, Space will also include the capability to extract and structure information from documents for use in areas such as accounting, customer relationship management and procurement.

Teo said the programme was intended to address a common problem among SMEs, where useful business information may be scattered across different systems and shared drives.

She added that access to technology alone was not enough, as SMEs also needed the skills and confidence to use AI effectively.

“Our aim is not simply to give SMEs access to AI, but to build their capabilities to use it effectively over time.”

1,000 SMEs to get help deploying agentic AI

IMDA is also partnering Salesforce on the Slack AI Launchpad Programme.

Up to 1,000 SMEs will receive a complimentary 60-day Slack Business+ trial and attend two workshops aimed at helping them identify suitable AI use cases and build at least one AI-enabled workflow for their business.

Participating SMEs will also have access to a dedicated Slack community and support from Salesforce during the trial period.

Teo said agentic AI could take on routine tasks, support decision-making and help businesses work more efficiently, particularly SMEs facing manpower and time constraints.

A third partnership with Beyondsoft will give up to 1,000 SMEs access to a catalogue of AI solutions that have already been adopted in China.

The Tech Bridge Programme will initially focus on retail, wholesale and food and beverage businesses, with tools covering areas such as sales management, customer engagement, store operations and market intelligence.

AI adoption among SMEs rose to 23.4 per cent

AI adoption among SMEs rose from 14.5 per cent in 2024 to 23.4 per cent in 2025, according to IMDA’s Singapore Digital Economy Report.

Among enterprises that have adopted AI, 87.6 per cent cited productivity and process improvement as key benefits, while 44 per cent reported cost reductions and resource optimisation.

IMDA said SMEs are moving beyond experimenting with AI and embedding it more deeply into their operations.