Opening Address by MOS Jasmin Lau at Launch of NUS Executive Master in AI and Digital Transformation on 14 Jan

Good morning, everyone.

We hear the words “AI” and “digital transformation” all the time. I’m sure many of you already appreciate their importance, so I will not spend more time convincing you of that.

Instead, let me share three leadership challenges that repeatedly surface in my conversations with leaders who are leading their organisations through this AI age.

Using AI well is not a technical exercise. It requires significant personal commitment from leaders to drive organisational change. And to do so with clarity, courage, and sound judgment.

The first challenge we often encounter is for leaders to understand your organisations deeply enough to know where AI can create real value, not just incremental efficiency.

Today, many leaders already encourage their staff to use AI to improve existing processes or to become more productive, in organising reports or speeding up routine tasks. These efforts do improve productivity, but AI has the potential to do so much more.

One reason why organisations cannot seem to extract more value from AI or digital transformation is because leaders may not know well, the detailed workflows and processes being used within the whole organisation. Leaders may have spent years raising the ranks, stakeholder engagement, public relations etc, and we now need to go back into our organisations to understand how processes and workflows have evolved over time.

Let me give you a good example of the experience I had in the Ministry of Health. Coming out of COVID in 2023, we had a nursing shortage, but we couldn't figure out why. When we started digging into it, we found that our nursing registration process had over 100 steps in it. We looked at the whole process and said, we think we need to do this faster, and it was not about digitalising the 100 steps. It was to first think about if you need all of these steps. I think this is the kind of challenge you will face in your respective organizations.

It starts with going back to the basics, understanding how processes have evolved over time, and as a leader, having the conviction and the courage to say, let's start from zero.

As you go through this programme, it is a good time to ask yourselves: Do you really understand your organisation’s most pressing problems, and the areas where digital transformation or AI can fundamentally change outcomes? Are you ready to say, let's start from zero?

The second challenge leaders often face, once you figure out what the problems are, is assessing your organisation’s current capabilities to carry out the transformation, and then deciding whether you want to build in-house, borrow new capabilities or buy these capabilities.

It took me some time to learn basics of AI. I was also fortunate to have had to work through some IT system enhancements during my time in the public service. But this is dry and hard work. And the pace of technology development is much faster than our ability to learn.

There is no one size fits all solution for all organisations. If your organisation decides to rely on external vendors, you will risk some deskilling of your workforce, lose experienced staff who worked on the processes over the years, and lose domain expertise needed to supervise your AI systems. If you try to build all your capabilities in-house, the pace of transformation may be slower than you want, and the inertia to change will be very high.

These are real tensions that leaders must navigate. Deciding the pace of change, the depth of adoption, and having honest conversations with your teams about new realities.

Now, most of us end up on a hybrid – we bring in some external capabilities, and then we convince our teams to learn from those who know better. I would like you to explore on your own, what's the mix that you bring to your organisation?

But you will have to support your people through the transformation. You have to recognise that they will be anxious, and you have to invest in their capabilities, rather than hollow efficiency.

The third challenge, and perhaps the most important one, is understanding the impact of AI and digital transformation on people, and knowing when not to use AI, even when you can.

Not every decision, process or workflow in your organisation should be optimised purely for speed, scale, or cost.

As leaders, you will have to ask yourselves:

1. Does this use of AI erode trust?

2. Does it reduce human judgment where empathy and feelings matter?

3. Does it distance us as leaders from accountability?

Now and then, you ask yourself, when do you keep AI out of your organisation? Because the humans matter more.

This is where leadership matters most. AI does not come with a built-in moral compass, but all of you do. I encourage all of you to think about your own compass as you go through this course, and let it guide you through your leadership decisions after the course.

One clear “no-regrets” move for leaders is to invest in learning and relearning, for yourselves and for your organisations. We all need to learn how to work with AI: to understand which tools matter for our roles, how to guide the implementation of the tools effectively, and how to exercise sound judgment over their outputs.

Let me give you an example on software engineering. Nowadays, with the rise of coding assistants, many of our engineers, including those in GovTech, spend less time on actual coding tasks and more time directing AI models, validating outputs, and making higher-order decisions.

Many engineers tell me that at the start, they were wondering whether their job will be replaced and whether what they learned in school is no longer relevant. But now their current work is a lot more mentally demanding, because the focus has shifted to critical thinking, rather than routine and repetitive tasks.

This pattern will likely repeat across many professions and sectors.

That is why leaders like all of us must stay hands-on, cultivate a lifelong learning mindset, and think deeply about how AI reshapes our work and responsibility.

Even our ministers in Singapore have undergone training in AI and digital product development. We had our two training sessions towards the end of last year, and to be honest, I think in four months’ time, we probably need another round of these training sessions!

I am happy to be here with you today at the launch of NUS’s Executive Master in AI and Digital Transformation. To all of you in the inaugural cohort, congratulations on taking this step. Balancing your work, life, and studies is a serious commitment to leadership in a changing world. But it's also a blessing, as there are many of us here who wish that we had the same time and the resources to spend on learning in a very structured environment and with students from different industries all over the world. I hope that all of you make the most of it.

I also hope that this programme equips you not just with technical skills and knowledge, but with the judgment, confidence, and ethical clarity to lead transformation well.

I thank NUS for this important initiative, and I wish you all a truly transformative journey ahead.

Thank you.