Singapore Is Asia's Most AI-Anxious Society — Precisely Because AI Works

Singapore runs on efficiency, and its AI adoption numbers prove it — but the same survey that shows the city-state sprinting ahead of its neighbours also reveals a quieter, less comfortable statistic: Singaporeans are the most anxious AI users in Asia. The 2026 AI Survival Anxiety Survey, conducted by Lianhe Zaobao with Taiwan's Global Views Research and Malaysia's Sin Chew Daily, polled more than 2,700 respondents across Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and mainland China, including 444 from Singapore. The result is a portrait of a society that has embraced AI faster than anyone else in the region — and is now thinking hardest about what that embrace costs.

Nearly four in five Singapore respondents (79.5%) use AI at least once a week, and 57.4% use it daily; only 4.3% have never touched it. Workplace adoption leads the region too: 80.4% use AI to improve work efficiency — a figure that hits 98% among respondents aged 18 to 34 — and 46% say their employers provide AI training or tools, far ahead of mainland China (30.5%), Taiwan (29%) and Malaysia (28.5%). Singaporeans estimate AI now handles 28.9% of their work tasks on average, second only to mainland China. Around one in four (24.8%) pay for AI tools out of their own pocket, the highest rate among the four markets.

Yet the anxiety numbers climb just as steeply. Singapore recorded the region's highest scores for fear of being replaced by AI (5.82 out of 10) and for struggling to stay competitive (5.19). Only 22% of Singaporeans believe AI will raise their income over the next three years, well below Taiwan (36.5%) and Malaysia (29.8%). The top fear is deepfakes and fraud, scoring 7.01 — a worry with real grounding: in May, police uncovered a deepfake scam that forged a Zoom meeting featuring President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, defrauding one victim of at least S$4.9 million.

NUS professor Ben Leong, director of the AI Centre for Educational Technologies, offers a framing that explains the paradox: AI has shown tangible value in Singapore's workplaces, which is precisely why people feel the pressure of its progress. He draws a line between "copilot" use, where humans stay in control, and "autopilot" use, where the real replacement risk lives — and argues employers and public agencies should invest in skills so workers can stay in the copilot seat. The survey backs the trust angle: 93.9% of Singaporeans say they trust government or official sources most, against just 4.1% for trending social media content.

Why it matters for Singapore: This survey lands as the government pushes NAIS 2.0 adoption and the National AI Council, chaired by PM Lawrence Wong, begins its work. The data suggests Singapore's AI strategy is working on the adoption front — but the workforce is absorbing the disruption with the highest anxiety in the region. The next phase of policy isn't just about getting more businesses to use AI; it's about whether employers can turn the region's most AI-literate workforce into its most confident one. That gap between usage and reassurance is the metric to watch in the coming year.