Singapore rolled out more than 200 AI courses on Sept 16 to build workplace skills, responding to a surge in demand from mid-career workers seeking to boost productivity and protect their careers.

Private training providers are seeing record participation. Vertical Institute reported that enrolment in its AI courses more than doubled over the past year, while Tribe Academy noted its three-month flagship programmes have been consistently oversubscribed across 10 intakes since January 2025.

The push comes as professionals across various sectors use artificial intelligence tools to finish tasks that once took hours or days in minutes. At media solution company Sky Vision Media, general manager Kok Yokelee saw clients turning to AI apps that subtitle an hour of TV content for less than US$20 (S$25), far below the cost of human translators.

Price disruption is hitting specialized commercial services directly. Clients purchasing media transcription and translation now use automated platforms to subtitle an hour of video content for under US$20, undercutting legacy agency fees and forcing service vendors to restructure production pipelines.

At media solution provider Sky Vision Media, general manager Kok Yokelee adopted speech-to-text platform Whisper and Claude following introductory training at Vertical Institute. The tools compressed the transcription and translation of a one-hour Indonesian broadcast into Bahasa Malaysia from eight hours across two translators down to 30 minutes, accompanied by automated audio-anomaly reporting.

To handle corporate confidentiality constraints, Kok completed advanced training to configure local large-language models that run on internal hardware. Operating models locally ensures proprietary enterprise files remain within closed corporate networks rather than passing through public cloud infrastructure.

Source link