Singapore: Country’s first generative artificial intelligence sandbox to help SMEs capture new AI opportunities

Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) launched the GenAI Sandbox for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on Wednesday (February 7), to help firms in gaining hands-on expertise with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) options.

As per an official news release, it is a first step in enabling native SMEs larger entry to GenAI and builds on each businesses’ ongoing efforts to strengthen AI growth and ecosystem in Singapore.

What sectors will this profit and the way?

The GenAI Sandbox is predicted to profit some 300 SMEs from sectors, together with retail, F&B, training, and hospitality, which can be ready to faucet on a variety of GenAI options to elevate advertising and gross sales, and buyer engagement efforts.

Solutions within the Marketing and Sales class will allow SMEs to generate various and distinctive advertising content material akin to customised emails and social media posts which are tailor-made to particular person marketing campaign methods. These options permit SMEs to shorten their advertising preparation course of and harness GenAI capabilities to develop partaking content material.

With the potential transformative affect of GenAI, SMEs can profit from experimenting with the know-how, as a part of their broader digitalisation journey. The sandbox of curated options will present our SMEs larger accessibility to GenAI earlier than deploying it on a bigger scale.

Leong Der Yao, Assistant Chief Executive, Sectoral Transformation Group, IMDA.

Solutions within the Customer Engagement class will allow SMEs to higher interact clients at scale utilizing GenAI-powered chatbots, which permit clients to simply seek for data, flick through personalised suggestions, or make reservations. These options allow SMEs to unlock manpower to optimise operational effectivity, whereas concurrently enhancing clients’ expertise.

This newest initiative to make accessible ready-to-use GenAI options to our native SMEs is a part of our ongoing efforts to collaborate with private and non-private sectors to speed up the expansion of the AI ecosystem and developments in Singapore. We strongly encourage SMEs to come onboard the Sandbox to expertise how their companies can profit from GenAI options.

Soh Leng Wan, Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Manufacturing & Engineering, Enterprise Singapore.

How will it work?

EnterpriseSG and IMDA have recognized 13 GenAI options that can be progressively onboarded to the Sandbox by the top of February 2024. These options had been collectively curated with business and technical specialists from numerous Institutes of Higher Learning, primarily based on ease of use and deployment for SMEs.

Application to shut by May

All native SMEs can apply to take part within the Sandbox. Successful and eligible candidates will obtain grant help from IMDA to trial one of many GenAI options of their alternative for 3 months, to achieve hands-on expertise and higher perceive the features of GenAI and the advantages to their companies.

Applications to the Sandbox will shut by finish of May 2024, or if the utmost capability for the Sandbox has been reached, whichever comes earlier. Following the conclusion of the Sandbox, EnterpriseSG and IMDA will assessment the suggestions from SMEs to consider the suitability of those options and discover the feasibility to additional scale the adoption of GenAI purposes throughout the native enterprise neighborhood.

How to apply?

To know extra concerning the scheme and the way to register, please click on on https://go.gov.sg/sme-gen-ai.