AI is not replacing Jobs in Asia but concerns remain among Singapore professionals

Asia:

• 58% of employers have already implemented AI in the workplace
• 93% of professionals are actively using AI in their work, 75% believe that AI will positively impact their career opportunities
• 33% of employers say that workforce optimisation is a key objective of AI
• Administration and business support, IT and Digital Transformation, Accounting & Finance are the top three functions that AI has had the strongest impact on

Singapore:

• While 89% of professionals use AI at work, only 59% are confident in keeping their skills up to date
• 67% of professionals believe AI will have a positive impact on their career opportunities
• Top concerns with AI adoption include job displacement, bias or unfair treatment, and skills being obsolete
• Tasks most commonly supported by AI include Research and information gathering, Copywriting and content creation, and Data analysis and insights generation

With only 33% of employers in Asia seeing workforce optimisation as a key objective of AI, AI has accelerated the need for organisations and professionals to rethink jobs, skills and career pathways. As AI reshapes workforce models across Asia, Robert Walters shared insights, from close to 5,000 professionals and companies across 10 Asian markets, on the perceptions and usage of AI in an eguide “The Jobs of Tomorrow: How AI is Reshaping Work Across Asia”.

Asia: High AI usage, but market context matters in how professionals experience AI

AI usage is widespread across markets surveyed, with more than half (58%) of employers in Asia having introduced AI in the workplace. 93% of professionals interviewed are actively using AI, and 75% of them believe that AI will impact their career opportunities positively.

Despite active usage, professionals in each market viewed AI’s impact differently.  Higher usage markets such as Vietnam (98%) and the Philippines (95%) report strong optimism about AI’s impact on careers, but they were not as confident in keeping their AI skills up to date. Mainland China stands out as the most optimistic market overall (88%), while Taiwan shows the highest confidence in skills relevance (73%) despite slightly lower optimism. Hong Kong and Singapore show comparatively weaker career outlooks (66% and 67% respectively) despite widespread AI use.

Employers in Asia say that AI has the strongest impact where work is highly process-driven, data-intensive or operational, with the top three functions being: Administration & Business Support (43%), IT & Digital Transformation (35%) and Accounting & Finance (32%). As for professionals, they most commonly use AI to support content creation (47%), data analysis (40%) and research (38%).

Alongside changes within existing roles, AI is driving demand for emerging and fast-growing roles such as:

• AI adjacent and hybrid positions that bridge technical teams and the business (eg. AI product manager)
• Data, Insights and transformation-centred roles to ensure insights lead to measurable outcomes (eg. Data Analyst)
• Governance, ethics and trust-related roles (eg. AI Governance or Risk Manager)

These findings suggest that while AI is transforming and creating roles, it’s not necessarily replacing jobs. Workforce optimisation is a key objective of the introduction of AI for only 33% of organisations surveyed.

Singapore Snapshot: High AI Adoption Reshaping the Skills Required to Succeed

While 89% of Singapore professionals use AI at work, they showed comparably lower optimism about AI’s impact on careers, with 67% believing that AI would affect their career opportunities positively, one of the lowest among the Asian markets. 59% of the professionals were confident that they can keep their skills up to date as well.

As AI becomes embedded in everyday workflow, Singapore professionals highlighted concerns around the implications of working alongside these systems. Top concerns about AI adoption include the risk of job displacement due to automation (48%), potential bias or unfair treatment from AI-driven decisions (42%), and the anxiety that their skills may become obsolete (41%).

Similar to the region, AI is seen as a tool that enhances efficiency and supports execution instead of replacing human judgement here. It is most commonly used for Research and Information-gathering (49%), Copywriting and content creation (41%), Data analysis and Insights-generation (30%).

Kirsty Poltock, Country Manager of Robert Walters Singapore, says, “AI is reshaping how work is done, shifting routine tasks to automation while elevating human responsibility for judgement and decision-making. Professionals are expected to assess outputs critically, apply context and manage expectations. Over time, this reshapes the skills required to succeed and the way organisations structure roles, teams and progression. This is why we have seen that job titles can remain unchanged, even as performance expectations shift.”

The findings show that there is a need for companies to invest in reskilling as a core strategy, in view of the anxiety about falling behind or being unable to keep up as jobs evolve.

"In an AI-driven workplace, we found in our Salary Survey that Critical thinking & fact-checking, Data Analysis, and Adaptability are the top skills companies are looking for as well,” Kirsty added. 

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