AI value fails to materialise as 46% of firms skip job redesign

Nearly half of firms skip job redesign, leaving AI tools without an operational framework.

Nearly half of organisations in Singapore have yet to redesign their job roles or responsibilities, reflecting a gap between artificial intelligence (AI) technology investment and execution.

In a new report, Accenture said that 46% of companies have not yet addressed job redesign, which “creates a specific and costly situation: AI tools exist, but the organisation has not updated its operating model, decision rights, incentives, risk controls, performance measures and career pathways to support new ways of working.”

“The technology is deployed but the work is unchanged and people are unsupported. As a result, the value that AI was supposed to create does not materialise,” the company said.

In his budget speech last February, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong emphasised Singapore’s focus towards building industry clusters powered by AI, linking companies across sectors to develop technologies that could compete globally.

Experts have noted that this direction signals a shift in economic strategy, with the government betting on AI and industry collaboration to drive growth.

However, data from the Ministry of Manpower has showed 71.5% of companies have yet to adopt AI. Amongst those that have, 70.7% reported productivity gains, with smaller shares citing improvements in decision-making and innovation.

Accenture also noted that organisations that placed people at the centre of AI transformation in 2025 grew revenue 1.8 percentage points higher and profit 1.4 percentage points higher than their peers.

The report noted the critical role of CEOs in an organisation’s AI adoption.

“Company CEOs are thus the implementation layer of the national mandate. This is not a burden but an invitation to lead,” Accenture said.

The report outlined three elements of the new leadership contract: a commitment to use AI for growth rather than just cost reduction; ownership of work redesign as a CEO-level responsibility rather than a byproduct of technology deployment; and reinvestment of the productivity gains released by AI back into people and capability.

“Together, they are what converts an AI program into a transformation, and what makes the national growth mandate real at the enterprise level,” Accenture said.

Mark Tham, country managing director, Singapore at Accenture also said that “business leaders must elevate their talent strategies to an equal, if not greater imperative than technology adoption.”

“Singapore's enterprises have largely mastered the technology part. The harder question is whether CEOs are willing to own the redesign of work with the same urgency because that is where the real growth is,” he added.