The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) along with EnterpriseSG has launched a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) Sandbox for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to explore AI opportunities.
The GenAI Sandbox is expected to benefit some 300 SMEs from sectors including retail, F&B, education, and hospitality, which will be able to tap into a range of GenAI solutions to elevate marketing sales, and customer engagement efforts.
IMDA's assistant chief executive for sectoral transformation group, Leong Der Yao, said SMEs can benefit from experimenting with GenAI, as part of their broader digitalisation journey.
"The sandbox of curated solutions will provide SMEs greater accessibility to GenAI before deploying it on a larger scale," he added.
The partners have identified 13 GenAI solutions that will be progressively onboarded to the Sandbox by the end of February 2024.
IMDA said these solutions were jointly curated with industry and technical experts from various Institutes of Higher Learning, based on ease of use and deployment for SMEs.
The solutions in the marketing and sales category aim to support SMEs in generating varied marketing content such as customised emails and social media posts that are tailored to individual campaign strategies.
This is expected to help SMEs shorten their marketing preparation process and develop engaging content.
The customer engagement category is said to enable SMEs to optimise operational efficiency and engage customers through initiatives like GenAI-powered chatbots.
IMDA is currently inviting all local SMEs to participate in the Sandbox and on successful selection, applicants will receive grant support to trial one of the GenAI solutions of their choice for three months.
Earlier in November 2023, the Singapore government had launched two sandboxes, one for exclusive use by government agencies and the other for enterprises to develop and test Gen AI applications.
It is also seeking international feedback for a new AI governance framework recommended by IMDA.
The framework identified nine key dimensions of AI governance including accountability, data, safety, incident reporting, testing and assurance, security, and content provenance.
It aims to set forth a systematic and balanced approach to address generative AI concerns while facilitating innovation.
