Peiru Teo

It was an honour to share about the biggest shift in human history: AI at SMU School of Computing and Information Systems Industry Day. At Google, we've viewed AI since 2018 as not just a technological advancement; it's a profound enabler that can help us tackle humanity’s most significant challenges. I shared how AI is already making a tangible difference across three critical areas: 🩺 Healthcare: From empowering doctors to detect diseases earlier to accelerating drug discovery with tools like AlphaFold, AI is shifting us from treatment to prevention and saving lives. 🌀 Climate Change: AI gives us the most precious resource in a crisis—time. Our AI-powered tools provide earlier, more accurate forecasts for floods and hurricanes, helping communities prepare and respond more effectively. 🎓Education: We’re making education more personal and accessible. AI helps students get one-on-one help and empowers teachers to create personalised learning plans, freeing them to focus on mentoring and inspiring. This vision can only be realised through a shared commitment to building robust infrastructure, investing in human capital through skilling programs, and shaping forward-thinking policies. The real value for all of us is this: AI isn't just about building new products. It’s also about empowering people to solve our greatest challenges and level the playing field for many of us. The potential is immense, and it’s a future that we can all build together. Glad to also catch up with Sun Sun Lim, Adeline Tung, Xinxing Xu and Feida Zhu.

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How AI-powered service robots will replace frontline workers? Professor Jochen Wirtz is Vice Dean of MBA Programmes and Professor of Marketing at NUS Business School and visited Asia School of Business to speak about “GenAI Meets Service Robots: The Promise of LLMs, LBMs & Agentic AI in the Service Sector.” I’m sharing my notes, as unfortunately it was a very exclusive event and a few people could attend. Professor Wirtz’s research focuses on service robots enhanced by generative AI, large language models, large behavioural models, and agentic AI. These multipurpose robots can learn, adapt, and personalize interactions, for example, tailoring food to Professor Michael Frese's culinary preferences, improving interactions in hospitals, solving customers problems, or opening more sections of ASB parking when capacity is reached without requiring human authorization. Their versatility will also serve the "long tail" of unique human needs that cannot be met by human workers in an industrialized world. Training these service robots will not require technical expertise, anyone can do it. Trainers will eventually be replaced by their trainees, and the robots themselves will also help train humans. The impact on societies will be significant: by 2030, there may be one robot for every eleven humans. Many service jobs will be replaced, labor shortages in some sectors (such as IT) will be eased, while unemployment in others will increase. Robots with perfect memory and access to vast knowledge create new risks and responsibilities that must be addressed: ethics, fairness, privacy, health, and safety. Professor Wirtz’s webpage and research will be listed in the first comment.

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Earlier this month, Vikram and I had the privilege of joining the Singapore Executive Summit hosted by OpenAI What stood out in every discussion: AI has not peaked, not even close. The breakthroughs we see today are just the beginning. In the coming weeks, months, and years, AI will unlock capabilities that will fundamentally re-architect how enterprises operate. A successful enterprise AI charter should be built on 3 core principles: - Don’t wait for certainty. By then, it’s too late. - Hyper-experimentation wins. - If AI doesn’t solve a problem today, it doesn’t mean it won’t tomorrow. It just means you’re early. The question for leaders is no longer if AI will reshape their business, but how fast they can become AI-first. At CARS24 we have chosen to lead.

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Some welcome feedback from Mr DIY after our first AI Agentic Automation via n8n session with this world-class 18,000 employee organisation. Our session was their first ever AI training session with such an objective to focus on transformation. Dr. Cher Han Lau and I excel in what we do because we always want to offer tremendous value to allow organisations to start their transformation processes immediately. No other company has trained 1000+ people in 4 months with a focus on intended outcomes, which is to empower organisations to move at scale with AI adoption beyond subscribing to ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot. This is thanks to a whole team of subject matter experts Edmund Hee, Marcus Chia, Wei Khjan Chan, YeeSheng CHOON, CFP® on technical and business implementation. Thanks for the support Gabriel Y. W. Zhang, Bukhari Mokhtar and Shie Haur T.! --------- Hey Warren, happy to share reasons why we chose your course after evaluating 8-10 HRDF claimable courses that all offered some form of AI training: 1) business relevance: We wanted to conduct some kind of AI training that would enhance overall workplace productivity. The audience would be a mix of people from different departments. In that regard, we wanted something that would be applicable no matter the participants' background. Many courses either focused on something too generic (prompt engineering) or too niche (RPA or Midjourney). Workflow automation hits the sweet spot of requiring a low-moderate amount of upskilling, is useful to everyone, and potentially has very high business ROI. 2) focus: We like that the 2 days are focused on getting participants to do one thing well, instead of cramming multiple topics. 3) prerequisites: The course didn't require any technical skills (e.g. Python proficiency). 4) tooling choice: A few courses also offered training on workflow automation, but with Zapier and make. Of these, n8n is probably the most useful (highest ROI) but the least easy to learn without a trainer (relatively). 5) transparency: The brochure with a clear explanation of course content and previous clients was helpful. Most HRDF course providers seemed dodgy (sketchy looking website, refused to provide clear info even after I contacted them). 6) trainer credibility: The fact that we can look you and Cher Han up on LinkedIn is a plus. I don't think there are many credible HRDF course providers in KL atm. General Assembly is probably the most recognized local bootcamp provider but they've dropped out of the spotlight in the last 10 years.

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Asia has an aging population, a caregiving labor shortage and a senior loneliness problem. So South Korea gave AI-powered robotic dolls to elderly Koreans. 🤖👵🏼 The twist? They're a huge hit. We've reported on AI companions for years; once again, evolving consumer behavior in Asia is driving a now-global trend. I'm obsessed with this topic because of the tricky questions it raises. Sure: ideally, we'd all prefer to live in a society where humans form strong bonds with other humans. But societies *everywhere* are struggling: Young people report having fewer IRL friends. More adults are staying single, while senior loneliness explodes. And it's not just because of smartphones. Our world has been reshaped by evolving habits, declining institutions and (yes) technology. So what is the solution? We can't put the genie back in. Concerns about use of AI in these settings are valid: the AI might be fake, but the human emotional response is real. The edge cases are horrifying. Privacy issues abound. But comfort in imaginary things is not imaginary comfort. Will your grandmother have her own Korean AI doll soon? We'll see. Read the latest Rest of World: https://lnkd.in/gRUZ-V-q

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