A feel for the room before you put me in front of yours.
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Available in SingaporeSingapore is the one place in the world where this keynote can quote the regulator back to the room. IMDA wrote the apprenticeship problem into a national AI framework in January 2026, in almost the same words.
A feel for the room before you put me in front of yours.
IMDA's Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI, version 1.0 of 22 January 2026, section 2.4.3, reads: as agents take over entry level tasks, which typically serve as the training ground for new staff, this could lead to loss of basic operational knowledge for the users. Organisations should identify core capabilities of each job and provide sufficient training and work exposure so that users retain foundational skills.
A few pages earlier it warns of the potential loss of trade craft. It names automation bias as the tendency to over-trust a system that has performed reliably in the past. It requires that overseers be trained to identify failure modes. And it requires that the effectiveness of the oversight itself be audited, which almost no organisation anywhere does.
It is also honest about its own limit. The executive summary concedes that continuous human oversight over all agent workflows becomes impractical at scale, which is the concession most governance documents avoid making.
Two qualifications belong with any use of it. It is guidance rather than statute. And it states a risk and a duty to train without setting any threshold for what counts as retaining core skills, or any test of whether the training worked. That gap is where a board session in Singapore usually starts.
Singapore published a Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AI on 30 May 2024. Both published versions were read and searched at source. They contain zero occurrences of human oversight, human-in-the-loop, over-reliance, automation bias or deskilling. Human oversight is not among its nine dimensions.
Twenty months later the same issuing body built a pillar around oversight and added deskilling to it. For a Singapore audience that is the most useful single slide in the deck, because it dates the moment the problem became visible to their own regulator.
The Ministry of Manpower reported in June 2026 that 28.5 per cent of firms had adopted AI, rising to 74.1 per cent in information and communications, 57.5 per cent in professional services and 56.4 per cent in financial and insurance services.
The more useful pair sits underneath. Only 6.2 per cent of firms reported AI-related reductions in headcount or hiring, against 18.9 per cent reporting redesign of job functions. The ministry's own conclusion was that AI is having a greater impact on job redesign and work processes than on broad-based job displacement.
Redesign running roughly three times ahead of displacement is a useful corrective to forecasting that treats job losses as the headline. It is also not reassuring on its own, because redesign decides which repetitions survive, and a survey counting headcount cannot tell you which ones went. That is the question at the missed reps.
Boards, executive committees, regional headquarters, financial and professional services, and corporate and association conferences. Delivery is in English. Keynotes run 40 to 90 minutes, with workshop and board-session formats. Rahim travels from London, and where travel is not practical the same session is delivered online. He can travel to the region or deliver virtually across all time zones.
Three keynotes, all versions of one argument. Drift vs Design is the signature talk for boards and executive teams. We Are Superheroes covers the seven human skills that grow more valuable as the tools spread. WTH, What the Human is a live judgement test for boards, run in the room, December to March only. Full descriptions are at keynotes.
Rahim Hirji speaks in Singapore in English on AI, work and human judgement. He is the author of SuperSkills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI (Kogan Page, 2026), which has been covered by The Straits Times, and he founded EtonX, the online learning venture of Eton College. His keynote engages directly with IMDA's agentic AI framework.
IMDA's Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI, version 1.0 of 22 January 2026, states that as agents take over entry level tasks, which typically serve as the training ground for new staff, this could lead to loss of basic operational knowledge for the users, and that organisations should identify core capabilities of each job and provide sufficient training and work exposure so that users retain foundational skills. It is guidance rather than statute, and it sets no threshold for what counts as retaining core skills.
The Ministry of Manpower reported in June 2026 that 28.5 per cent of firms had adopted AI, rising to 74.1 per cent in information and communications. Only 6.2 per cent of firms reported AI-related reductions in headcount or hiring, against 18.9 per cent reporting redesign of job functions.
Written by Rahim Hirji, author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.
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Part of speaking across Asia. See also Hong Kong and Tokyo.
