SWDA Offers 200+ AI Courses and Free Premium Tools, Opens Connect Hub

Singapore has put more than 200 artificial intelligence courses on the table, bundled with six months of no-cost access to a curated set of premium AI tools. Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong marked the rollout by opening Connect, a career and training hub run by SWDA at the Lifelong Learning Institute, where he also kicked off the SkillsFuture Festival 2026.

The no-cost tool access sits under the SkillsFuture AI Subscription scheme. The agency behind the push, the newly formed SWDA, wants career guidance, workforce advice and employer support delivered from one place rather than scattered across separate programmes. Connect folds in two earlier services, the Lifelong Learning Exploration Centre and Careers Connect. The festival tied to the launch opens 16 September and closes 28 October, spanning over 140 events islandwide for workers and companies.

Anyone unsure where to begin can take an AI Readiness Quiz built by the Singapore Institute of Technology, which points them toward programmes suited to their current level. Employers get a refreshed front door as well: the OurWorkforce portal succeeds SkillsFuture for Business, suggesting training and workforce plans calibrated to a company's own needs and offering digital support for reshaping roles and putting AI to work in operations.

SWDA chief executive Dilys Boey framed the reorganisation as an effort to align skills training, workforce change and employer assistance more closely, saying stronger partnerships and joined-up services should help people act on opportunities with greater confidence while firms strengthen their capabilities.

For businesses, the practical appeal is the shorter distance between spotting a gap and responding to it, with free tool access trimming the cost of trying new software. Training providers, meanwhile, get a clearer signal about which skills the state treats as urgent.

Why it matters for Singapore: The package ties the country's AI ambitions to its lifelong learning machinery, using subsidised access and redesigned pathways to nudge workers and employers toward adoption. With AI cast as a core economic priority, SWDA is betting that competitiveness will be settled as much in classrooms and company training rooms as in research labs. For an economy that runs on its people's skills, that keeps the focus on continuous upskilling rather than one-off credentials.