吳翰陽政務次長在宏利新加坡 AI 卓越中心啟動儀式上的開幕致辭

Ms Jodie Wallis, Global Chief AI Officer, Manulife,

Dr Khoo Kah Siang, Chairperson, Manulife Singapore President & CEO, Emerging Markets, Manulife Asia,

Mr Benoit Meslet, President & CEO, Manulife Singapore,

Ms Carolyn Neo, CEO, Institute of Banking and Finance,

Ladies and gentlemen.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for having me here at the opening of Manulife Singapore’s AI Centre of Excellence (CoE).

I am excited to be celebrating such a big milestone together with you.

As we know, AI adoption is accelerating in Singapore, and many companies are using AI in their operations today. Some are adopting AI-powered software, while others are finetuning or developing their own in-house models and tools to fundamentally transform their business processes.

But AI is not as simple as just adopting new tools. It can be a daunting prospect to be the “first-mover” when the impact is not certain. I’ve heard companies describing AI adoption as a continuous process of experimentation, as it requires the organisation to adopt new mindsets and approaches to do our work differently.

Hence, it is very significant that Manulife has taken this step to be among the first in the insurance sector to set up an AI CoE in Singapore. I would like to briefly touch on two aspects of this CoE that stood out to me.

First, the emphasis on building a future-ready workforce. From our engagements with other AI CoEs and companies adopting AI, we’ve heard that having strong, cross-functional teams is key to the effective implementation of AI solutions to address real business needs.

What does this mean? These teams typically comprise AI practitioners with deep AI and tech expertise, as well as employees from business units. They are then able to identify problem statements within their domains – sales, manufacturing, finance – so that in combination, we can use AI to solve these real business needs.

Beyond these cross-functional teams, employees throughout the organisation will also need a baseline understanding of AI – what we call ‘AI fluency’ – to effectively use AI in their daily tasks.

I’m very happy to hear that about 200,000 prompts in the Manulife Singapore office are being used, and that shows that AI fluency is increasing and growing in the Singapore operations.

The Economic Strategy Review (ESR) Committees are thinking hard about this, looking at strategies not just to develop top-tier AI talent, but also to uplift the broader base of our workforce to become AI fluent.

I commend Manulife’s commitment to preparing its workforce to seize opportunities in AI, alongside its efforts to transform business operations. I am glad to hear that Manulife has worked closely with the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as one of the 11 Financial Institutions to pilot workforce development initiatives alongside AI adoption.

This is absolutely necessary because the upskilling and reskilling of employees into new or enhanced roles will then be able to push them to the next level across functions like advisory, underwriting, risk, operations, and technology functions.

Manulife has also embarked on a Career Conversion Programme administered by IBF to redesign the role of retail underwriters and reskill them to leverage AI tools that enhance risk analysis and decision-making.

This will empower the retail underwriting team to manage more complex financial portfolios and engage with the global market segments where High Net Worth customers reside. This then elevates their role beyond traditional retail cases.

These efforts are great examples of what we hope to see throughout the economy, where AI augments our work so that we can focus on things that require human-centric skills – building up relationships, exercising judgement, and thinking critically.

Second, the emphasis on developing AI guardrails. In this age of AI, there are concerns – and understandably so – around the misuse of AI and use of personal data in AI systems. This is where transparency and responsible use of AI can be a differentiating factor, as it builds trust with customers, reassuring them that there are measures in place to monitor and reduce the risk of private information being released.

At the ecosystem level, when companies within Singapore are collectively developing and deploying AI responsibly and validating their systems against rigorous standards. This builds trust in products and services developed in Singapore. We think Singapore can be a key player in this area, where products and services carry a “Singapore trust mark” as a signal of reliability, safety, and quality.

As Manulife develops its AI guardrails and improves its Responsible AI Framework, I encourage Manulife to share your insights with others in the industry and contribute to industry-wide efforts to build trust in the use of AI in the financial services sector.

I look forward to seeing the live demonstrations of Manulife’s AI tools today, and to hearing about the exciting AI applications that will be developed as part of the new CoE.

Once again, thank you for having me, and I welcome your suggestions and ideas on how we can shape the AI ecosystem in Singapore.

Thank you.