We are the last generation of managers who manage only humans: Salesforce S-E Asia CEO

In the future, most companies will be operating teams that comprise both human workers and AI agents, says Arundhati Bhattacharya, president and chief executive of South and South-east Asia at Salesforce.

SINGAPORE – Ask a worker in a modern and advanced country such as Singapore about artificial intelligence, and you may hear apprehension. Ask one in India, and you are more likely to hear hope.

It may be that people who already enjoy a comfortable standard of living in advanced economies simply have less to aspire to.

This disparity in sentiment towards AI could stem from the transformative impact that technology has had on Indian society, says Arundhati Bhattacharya, South and South-east Asia president and chief executive at cloud software provider Salesforce.

She recalls an AI summit she attended in Delhi in February. “Not one of the attendees asked what would happen to their jobs,” she says. “How would AI help them and what are the opportunities – that was what all of them wanted to know. This was such a contrast to some of the other conferences I’ve been to in the West.”

Amid global fears that AI will displace jobs, optimism about the technology is growing in India – home to the world’s largest youth population of some 371 million, says the 70-year-old Indian national.

People in lower socio-economic classes, she notes, have benefited enormously from technologies like mobile connectivity and universal digital payments, which have transformed the way locals do business. Living standards in India have risen rapidly as a result.

“Young people in such countries believe technology is going to make their lives better and, therefore, welcome AI,” says Bhattacharya.

While Singapore already has the expertise, with digital services well entrenched in society, its ageing population makes it urgent for workers to become proficient in AI, Bhattacharya notes.

This way, younger Singaporeans can combine their technological know-how with the experience of their older colleagues to take on more complicated tasks once considered too difficult.

She says more needs to be done to educate people on how much AI can improve their lives. Beyond enhancing citizen services, it can open up new opportunities and knowledge fields once closed to them.

In countries larger and less developed than Singapore, AI has become essential to delivering public services, she adds.