In her latest column, Charlotte McEleny looks at Singapore’s investment in AI, how the country treats tech momentum as a national asset, and where marketing fits...

As a country, Singapore is often stereotyped as safe, clean, and efficient. These attributes play out as positive or negative depending on context, but in the era of AI, no country feels more naturally positioned to ride this moment.

Singapore has been quick to put serious money behind that opportunity. Budget 2026 committed SGD$150m to the Enterprise Compute Initiative and SGD$37bn under the RIE2030 Research, Innovation and Enterprise plan, alongside a 400% tax deduction on qualifying AI expenditure.

Likewise, the advertising industry's relationship with AI is deeply economically entrenched, with many of the biggest holding companies and tech platforms linking adoption to efficiency gains. In APAC, the adoption curve is steep because digital adoption is steep. Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing programmatic advertising market in the world, at a CAGR of 25%, according to SNS Insider, outpacing both North America and Europe.

The industry is already moving, but the more interesting question is what changes when the country you operate in decides to treat that momentum as a strategic national asset? In Singapore, that is exactly what has happened.

The question inside companies shifts from 'Can we afford to try?' to 'Why aren't we?'"

Government investment as an economic stimulator

Gita de Beer is a senior advisor & global director, strategic initiatives, at Heineken, and also serves as the Chair of the Marketing Society in Singapore, driving discussions with the industry on AI. She argues that AI adoption in businesses rarely fails for ideological reasons but fails on the same question around the budget.

Government investment, she says, changes that calculation entirely: "What the government is doing isn't just policy. It's real money put to work, billions into AI and targeted schemes to get companies building actual products. That changes behaviour. The question inside companies shifts from 'Can we afford to try?' to 'Why aren't we?'"

Budget conversations that previously required lengthy internal justification now start from a different baseline. Government commitment signals confidence, and confidence unlocks spending.

The control room for ASEAN

The case for Singapore as a regional hub is not new but the AI investment has sharpened it considerably. 

De Beer explains: "Singapore isn't just a hub. It's the control room for ASEAN. Most of the region's AI funding flows through here, and every major cloud and platform player has a serious presence. That concentration matters: talent, tools, and hard commercial problems all end up here."

De Beer highlights what makes Singapore particularly valuable for businesses in the sector. The hard commercial problems that define APAC, messy attribution, cross-border commerce, incomplete data, and conflicting incentives across fragmented markets, are not edge cases. They are the operating reality. Companies that build capabilities to address those conditions, with access to world-class infrastructure and the talent concentration that Singapore offers, are better positioned to scale solutions across the entire region.

Budget 2026 formalised what Singapore has been building toward. The new National AI Council, chaired by PM Wong with deputy prime minister Gan Kim Yong and health minister Ong Ye Kung among its members, is tasked with aligning R&D, regulation, and investment across agencies. National AI Missions will target 4 sectors: advanced manufacturing, connectivity and logistics, finance, and healthcare. A dedicated AI park is being built at one-north. The Champions of AI programme provides tailored support for enterprises committing to end-to-end AI transformation, with DBS and Grab named as models.

The platform players are reinforcing the case. Google has had its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore since 2007. Ben King, managing director of Google Singapore, says the Budget announcement is a statement of intent: "The AI roadmap unveiled at this year's Budget cements Singapore's position as a global force in this space."

The week before the Budget was delivered, Google announced 'Majulah AI', a skilling initiative that brings together programmes for jobseekers, entrepreneurs, developers, and seniors. Since 2020, Google's programmes have upskilled nearly 350,000 Singaporeans. Majulah AI introduces new Google AI Living Labs developed with the Ministry of Education, starting at ITE College East and targeting 50,000 Singaporeans by 2027; the Skills Ignition SG AI Challenge, with IMDA training 500 graduates and mid-career professionals in AI integration for non-technical roles; and the Gemini Academy, open to the general public. A new Google Cloud Singapore Engineering Center will facilitate direct technical collaboration with local enterprises.

For an industry that runs on platform relationships, that level of infrastructure commitment is significant.

Volume does not equal value

In Q3 2024, over a million advertisers used Meta's generative AI tools, producing more than 15 million ads in a single month. The scale is significant but so is the risk it surfaces.

De Beer says: "A tool trained on everything that exists tends to produce work that looks like everything that exists. It pulls creative toward the average and copies category codes instead of sharpening brand edges. Sameness kills memory. If people can't keep you distinct in their heads, they won't pay more for you."

De Beer is also pointing out where the damage shows up. The efficiency case looks good in short-term brand trackers, she notes, but the damage to the brand will show up in the long term. She argues this creates a genuine differentiator for businesses willing to use AI for quality rather than volume: brands that use AI to produce faster sameness will lose ground to those that use it to enable sharper, more distinctive thinking. 

Singapore's Champions of AI programme and expanded skilling investment are intended, in part, to ensure local businesses develop that capability. The industry itself shoulders most of the burden for ensuring this rush towards undifferentiated slop but access to budgets for training and re-skilling will support this.

The trust deficit

But where does that leave consumers? De Beer cites research indicating a growing problem with consumer trust, with some 51% of APAC consumers saying they can already identify low-quality AI content in their feeds and, according to Klaviyo, are not impressed by it.

De Beer identifies the structural problem: "Cheap AI plus weak consequences is a bad mix. You can already see the fallout: fake reviews, synthetic content, murky accountability. And people care more about trust when AI is involved, not less."

Budget 2026 addressed this directly. PM Wong is committed to defining clear rules for how AI is developed and used, with explicit provision for responsible and safe deployment in the national interest. The National AI Council's remit includes both governance and growth.

De Beer's position is specific: clear lines on what data can be used, what must be disclosed, and who is responsible when things go wrong. Brands can currently personalise at scale with almost no transparency obligations. Singapore has the credibility and convening power to set those standards for the region, and if it does, it raises the floor for every business that operates in the country.