Singapore can do more than supply AI talent — it can shape the AI products enterprises use worldwide. A year after opening its Singapore AI Lab, Workato’s local engineers have helped build the Workato AIRO multi-agent enterprise AI platform now generally available globally.

Singapore-based engineers contributed to the MCP Gateway, which lets enterprises securely connect their own AI models and tools, and the Control Plane, which consolidates governance of an organisation’s AI operations.

Rather than relying solely on experienced hires, the lab has deliberately developed early-career engineers and researchers by placing them on customer-facing projects with production deadlines.

“We believe in growing our AI team, not just purely hiring our way into a strong one. We made a deliberate decision to invest in engineers and researchers by providing them with real stakes from day one,” said Ee Shan Sim, Head of Workato’s AI Lab Singapore.

Workato chief product officer Bhagat Nainani said Singapore engineers brought particular rigour to testing how AI systems reason under real customer conditions.

“What Singapore AI engineers brought to our product innovation was a different kind of rigour, especially in how we tested the system’s reasoning under real customer conditions. This is early proof of the Lab’s premise that translational AI research done in Singapore can shape innovative products used by enterprises around the world,” he said.

According to Jinyong Low, Senior Vice President and Co-head of Digital Industry Singapore, the lab has demonstrated how companies could build local AI capability while creating products with global reach.

“To grow Singapore’s AI talent pool, we need to pair strong technical capabilities with opportunities to apply them to real-world business problems,” Low said.

Hiring partnerships

Workato has formed a hiring partnership with SG Enable and Autism Resource Centre (Singapore). Two new staff will join a team responsible for data quality, with roles designed around individual strengths rather than a standard job template.

“This partnership shows what is possible when companies design roles around strengths and skills required instead of expecting people to fit a predefined mould,” said Edward Chew, Senior Director for Employment and Lifelong Learning at SG Enable.

Opening keynote

In the opening keynote of World of Workato in Singapore, Chief of AI and General Manager Bhaskar Roy (top) highlighted Workato’s push to narrow the widening gap between enterprise AI investment and measurable business results.

“We [enterprises] have been spending a lot on AI infrastructure, AI models and AI tools, but the business outcomes and the business results have not kept pace. The gap between the business results and the AI spend is what we call ‘intent to outcome’ gap,” said Roy. “The new Workato lays down that foundation of work in the AI endeavour.”