Singapore firms expect agentic AI ROI to double but gaps remain: SAP study
Source: Techgoondu
Singapore businesses expect their returns from agentic AI to double within two years — yet almost none say they are ready to actually run it. That is the central tension in SAP's Value of AI Report 2026, compiled with Oxford Economics from a 2,600-leader global survey that included 200 respondents.
Singapore businesses expect their returns from agentic AI to double within two years — yet almost none say they are ready to actually run it. That is the central tension in SAP's Value of AI Report 2026, compiled with Oxford Economics from a 2,600-leader global survey that included 200 respondents in Singapore. Projected agentic AI ROI here is US$9.8 million (S$12.6 million) over the next two years, up from US$4.9 million (S$6.3 million) last year.
The optimism is genuine: 89 per cent of Singapore businesses say agentic AI has moderate to very high potential to transform their organisations, and AI already supports 27 per cent of day-to-day tasks — a share the report expects to reach 47 per cent within two years. But only 2 per cent of firms consider themselves ready for agentic AI. Ambition is running well ahead of operating reality, and the report's data shows exactly where the friction is.
The biggest drags are data and leadership. The share of Singapore companies describing themselves as data-ready for AI actually fell from 62 per cent last year to 55 per cent, while 82 per cent report challenges with incomplete data and 81 per cent have hit rework, delays or backlogs from low-quality AI outputs. On the leadership side, just 45 per cent of firms have a dedicated AI leader, 32 per cent tie AI to leadership KPIs, and only 37 per cent offer training on AI capabilities and risks. SAP Singapore managing director Eileen Chua frames it bluntly: AI is no longer a side project, and skills and accountability cannot trail the technology.
Why it matters for Singapore: The study quantifies the gap between Singapore's AI ambitions and its operational readiness — 79 per cent of businesses already admit their upskilling is not keeping pace with AI tooling. For a hub that sells itself as Asia's AI gateway, that is an uncomfortable but useful data point: the firms that close the data, governance and skills gaps first will be the ones that actually bank the ROI everyone else is merely projecting.
