8 OCT 2026 — Almost a quarter of Singapore's small and medium-sized enterprises now use AI, up from one in seven a year earlier. Large local companies are still three times as likely to use it, and most workers who say they need AI training have not had any. Those are the sharpest findings in the government's annual digital economy report, published on 5 October.
The Infocomm Media Development Authority's Singapore Digital Economy Report 2026 covers 2025. It puts the digital economy at S$144.1 billion, or 19.3% of GDP, up from 18.8%.
The adoption gap between firms
Among SMEs, AI use climbed from 14.5% to 23.4% in a single year. Large local enterprises, already well ahead, moved from 62.5% to 70.4%. The absolute gap barely narrowed. A large firm is still about three times as likely to use AI as a small one.
Adoption is likely to keep climbing. The share of non-adopters planning to start within a year has more than doubled, from 5.6% in 2023 to 12.1% in 2025. Close to nine in ten adopters use off-the-shelf AI tools, and 28.3% customise them. Two in five say they are expanding AI across the business or have fully deployed it.
Workers are ahead of their training
AI use on the job is now the norm for surveyed workers. In 2026, 85.7% used it, up from 77.6% a year earlier. They mainly use it to create content, and about two in three use it to automate routine work.
Training has not caught up. More than two-thirds of workers said they need to upskill in AI, but only 36.7% attended AI-related training in the previous 12 months, according to the full report. Among those who did not, the leading reason was that their employer had not sent them (34.9%), followed closely by lack of time (34.1%). About a quarter (26.6%) did not know which course to choose.
As the report puts it, closing the gap "may require greater employer support and clearer signposting to suitable training opportunities."
Most digital value sits outside the tech sector
More than two-thirds of the digital economy's value comes from outside the information and communications sector, from other industries using digital technology. The tech sector itself grew faster, by 6.1% to S$47.1 billion, but the digital activity of the rest of the economy is about twice its size, at S$97.0 billion after growth of 3.6%.
Tech jobs grow fastest outside tech
There were 222,200 tech workers in 2025, 3.8% more than a year earlier. Their numbers grew faster at employers outside the tech industry (5.3%) than inside it (1.8%). The fastest-growing roles were in AI and data, and in cybersecurity. Resident tech workers earned a median S$8,000 a month, 60% more than the S$5,000 median for all residents.
Government training programmes
IMDA says it will expand its TechSkills Accelerator to upskill 40,000 tech professionals in advanced AI skills over three years. A separate programme aims to train 100,000 non-tech professionals in AI skills for their own fields by 2029, starting with sectors such as accountancy and law.
"Our digital economy has now grown to 19.3% of Singapore's overall economy," said Ng Cher Pong, IMDA's chief executive. The report's own survey suggests adoption is no longer the main constraint. The question is whether employers will release staff to learn. The same week, the government told Parliament it is studying stricter rules for high-risk AI uses.
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