82% of Singapore Firms Have Rolled Back Live AI Agents, Survey Finds
Source: Singapore Business Review
A Sinch survey reveals 82% of Singapore enterprises have rolled back live AI agents — eight points above the global average — despite boasting the highest AI deployment rate in Asia-Pacific at 72%. The governance gap is the starkest in the region.
More than eight in ten Singapore enterprises have rolled back or shut down a live AI customer communications agent after deployment, according to a new report by Sinch titled The AI Production Paradox. The 82 per cent rollback rate sits eight percentage points above the global average, exposing a painful gap between AI ambition and operational reality in Singapore's business landscape.
The finding is especially striking because Singapore boasts the highest AI deployment rate in Asia-Pacific at 72 per cent. The region as a whole leads the world in AI agent adoption, with 67 per cent of enterprises putting AI agents into production — yet it also records the highest post-deployment failure rate at 83 per cent. Sinch's report surveyed 2,527 senior decision-makers across 10 countries and six industries, including 152 respondents in Singapore.
The consequences of these failures are tangible. Nearly half — 44 per cent — of Singapore enterprises cited support team overload as the top fallout, as customers frustrated with broken AI interactions escalate to human staff. With one in three Asia-Pacific enterprises sending more than 100 million messages per month, even small AI failures quickly cascade into brand trust and profitability problems.
Yet Singapore firms are not giving up on AI. Around 40 per cent plan to increase AI investment by more than 25 per cent versus the previous year, and 75 per cent are prioritising spending on trust, security and compliance. The governance gap remains stark: only 27 per cent reported having fully mature AI guardrails — the lowest in the region and well below the 35 per cent global average. Meanwhile, 91 per cent of Singapore enterprises are actively evaluating new communications providers, signalling a market in flux.
Why it matters for Singapore: The Sinch data reveals that Singapore's enterprises are simultaneously the region's most aggressive AI adopters and its most frequent AI failures. The 82 per cent rollback rate suggests the challenge has moved beyond pilot purgatory to issues of performance, reliability and control once AI agents are live. For a city-state staking its future on being an AI-first economy, closing the gap between deployment and delivery is no longer optional — it is existential.