Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming industries globally, and its potential for startups and SMEs is undeniable. This second instalment in e27’s special AI series highlights how this technology is revolutionising SMEs, creating opportunities, and and driving growth for SMEs.
Each article in this series features insights from industry leaders driving AI innovation. In this edition, we hear from Priya Lakshmi, Head of Startups, ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS), on which AI trends SMEs should keep their eyes on, and how to get started.
How AI levels the playing field for SMEs
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are engines of innovation, achieving impressive results with limited resources. With the advent of AI—particularly generative AI—SMEs now have access to capabilities once exclusive to large corporations. By democratising technology, AI drives productivity, insights, and continuous innovation.
AI empowers SMEs to compete with larger companies by scaling operations, improving decision-making, and enhancing customer experiences with fewer resources via cloud solutions. For instance, AI tools improve customer segmentation, enhance forecasting accuracy, and generate marketing content, boosting operational efficiency.
In particular, tools like generative AI, chatbots and machine learning (ML) models, deliver personalised recommendations, increasing customer engagement. As an example, Lion Parcel, an Indonesian logistics company, used ML to optimise customer segmentation and streamline workflows, significantly improving targeted marketing and CRM efforts.
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Additionally, AI-powered automation boosts productivity, reduces operational costs, and minimises human error by handling routine tasks like data entry and inquiries. This allows employees to focus on higher-value activities, such as enhancing customer service.
AWS’s journey alongside AI
Amazon has been at the forefront of AI and ML development for over 25 years, powering innovations like personalised recommendation engines on Amazon.com and AI-driven robots in our fulfilment centres. We’ve supported over 100,000 customers across industries in leveraging AI to drive innovation with industry-leading capabilities.
AWS democratises access to AI, enabling SMEs to adopt technologies like generative AI to improve their operations and scale their businesses. For over 18 years, AWS has supported more startups and SMEs than any other cloud provider. Today, 96 per cent of all AI and ML unicorns globally run on AWS.
How AWS utilises AI to support SMEs
We empower SMEs to harness AI by driving cost efficiency, scalability, improved decision-making, and personalised customer engagement. For example, Vietnamese startup Eklipse.gg reduced costs by 40 per cent and boosted development speed by 50 per cent using Amazon Bedrock. Another startup, AI Hay, scaled rapidly, processing over 5 million documents for Large Language Model (LLM) training.
Tools like Amazon SageMaker also enhance decision-making. While Amazon Personalize delivers tailored recommendations, enabling SMEs to provide personalised solutions at scale—capabilities once reserved for larger corporations.
AWS’s leadership position stems from our ability to provide SMEs with access to a broad range of foundation models all through a single API. This flexibility enables SMEs to select the right model for their specific use case – whether it’s automating operations, personalising customer interactions, or generating marketing content.
Why SMEs should keep an eye on Generative AI
We are especially excited about generative AI, as it is one of the most transformational technologies of our generation and holds the potential to tackle some of humanity’s most challenging problems.
Generative AI has proven to be a game-changer in the Asia-Pacific region. It allows SMEs to build culturally aware AI solutions and turn their local knowledge and expertise into a competitive edge against bigger firms. By leveraging local languages, visuals, and cultural nuances, SMEs—especially startups—have begun capitalising on generative AI to develop LLMs that create more inclusive, localised, and differentiated customer experiences.
One example is Botnoi.ai, a Thai generative AI startup. Botnoi.ai built a text-to-speech and speech-to-text AI platform called BOTNOI Voice on AWS, tailored to Southeast Asian languages and cultural norms using consented language data. It has been deployed in more than 70 enterprises in Thailand, improving customer service for over 10 million end-users.
AI drives tangible business value
AWS has worked with SMEs across Southeast Asia to implement AI solutions that drive tangible business value, including FathomX.
FathomX, a medtech AI startup, developed FxMammo, an AI-powered mammogram screening tool hosted on AWS. FxMammo enhances diagnostic accuracy for early breast cancer detection, reducing false positives by up to 75.5 per cent and false negatives by 38 per cent.
AWS’s infrastructure enabled FathomX to test its solution across diverse datasets from eight Asia Pacific countries, improving healthcare accessibility and outcomes in the region.
Culturally diverse data will shape the future of SMEs in SEA
In the coming years, SMEs in Southeast Asia will differentiate themselves by leveraging culturally diverse data to thrive in the region’s competitive landscape. By embracing Southeast Asia’s unique tapestry of languages and cultures, generative AI-powered tools—such as chatbots and consumer-facing apps —trained on such data can deliver nuanced, accurate, and culturally localized results.
Organisations like AI Singapore (AISG), a national program launched by Singapore’s National Research Foundation to enhance the country’s AI capabilities, are unlocking the potential of culturally diverse data.
Using AWS’s scalable compute infrastructure, AISG developed SEA-LION, a family of LLMs specifically pre-trained and instruct-tuned for Southeast Asian languages and cultures. Unlike traditional generative AI, SEA-LION discerns cultural nuances, such as the different ways Southeast Asian countries express laughter online—for example, “55555” in Thailand and “wkwkwk” in Indonesia.
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Mesolitica, a Malaysian startup specialising in training LLMs, has also built a Malaysian language generative AI LLM named MaLLaM on AWS, which understands local nuances like slang, colloquialisms that merge different dialects, Bahasa Malayu, and 16 other regional languages for use in AI assistants across industries. AI assistants built on MaLLaM can provide quick, accurate responses to citizens’ inquiries in multiple languages, including dialects from different Malaysian States to ultimately improve citizen communication and data processing capabilities across the culturally diverse country.
Locally-specific LLMs built from culturally diverse data will enhance citizen and consumer experiences, boost productivity, drive economic growth by unlocking new markets, and foster social inclusion through cultural awareness. These advancements promise to reshape how SMEs operate, transforming industries, creating new job categories, and amplifying human productivity.
Successful AI adoption begins with starting small – and data, always data
The key to AI adoption is to balance managing technological risks with leveraging AI’s benefits, much like businesses did during past industrial revolutions—but with a stronger emphasis on adaptive leadership and innovative organizational cultures.
SMEs should start small by running targeted proof-of-concept (PoC) projects with willing teams. This approach allows businesses to test AI’s potential on specific tasks while minimising risk.
Data plays a key role in helping SMEs make the most out of AI. Sixty-five per cent of highly data-driven SMEs financially outperform their competitors, compared to 33 per cent of less data-driven SMEs globally, according to a global study commissioned by AWS and conducted by S&P Market Intelligence in 2024.
Companies that have a clear data strategy and are already invested in a data foundation in the cloud have a strong advantage when it comes to adopting AI.
A clear demand for AI skills training
To succeed with AI, leaders must prepare themselves and their staff for this transformation now through continuous upskilling. There is a clear and growing demand for AI skills training across the region, with a recent Asia Pacific-wide study conducted by Amazon showing more than 9 in 10 workers in ASEAN indicated an interest in developing AI skills to accelerate their careers, and that this interest transcends generations.
In countries like Singapore, hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority for over eight in ten Singapore employers, yet 74 per cent can’t find the AI talent they need. In the same Asia Pacific study conducted by Amazon, the use of AI solutions and tools by ‘non-tech’ workers is projected to increase 1.6 times by 2028.
To close the skills gap, AWS has committed to train 5,000 individuals in Singapore on AI skills yearly from 2024-2026 through AI Spring Workforce.
For example, Fazz Financial Group, a leading financial platform, sought to develop generative AI solutions but needed to upskill their development team. Through AWS, Fazz held a generative AI hackathon that resulted in 10 prototypes, several of which are now being shortlisted for production. With tools like Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, and Amazon Q, AWS provided the technical foundation and training needed to help Fazz innovate efficiently in financial services.
On the importance of upskilling
The productivity payoff from an AI-skilled workforce could also be immense for companies. In Singapore for instance, employers believe AI can boost productivity by 44%.
An example is Terrascope, a Singapore-headquartered company, which is using generative AI tools to improve its efficiency in calculating carbon emissions to help enterprises measure and reduce their emissions. Besides harnessing the power of generative AI innovation to improve productivity, it also worked with AWS to develop its in-house cloud and AI skills training program using AWS Skills Builder. The in-house training has advanced ML and generative AI capabilities within Terrascope’s teams.
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On AWS’s role in shaping the future of AI adoption
AWS will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI adoption by fostering digitally-skilled talents, providing robust infrastructure support, and ensuring well-defined security and responsible AI policies.
We recently surpassed our goal—one year ahead of schedule—of helping 29 million people worldwide grow their tech skills through free cloud computing training. Building on this momentum, we continue to offer free generative AI training programs to equip learners with skills for in-demand jobs. Initiatives like the AWS Generative AI Spotlight program in Asia Pacific and Japan are empowering startups to accelerate their adoption of generative AI tools and services. The program provided selected startups—including 25 from ASEAN—access to expert knowledge and peer support to accelerate their fluency with generative AI tools and services from AWS.
Building trust amidst ethical discussions around AI
Security will remain our top priority. To support our customers in their AI development and adoption journeys, we will continue launching new tools, partnerships, and testing initiatives. Our goal is to enhance the safety, security, and transparency of our AI services and models, making it easier to build and deploy generative AI responsibly.
We also recognize that building trust and addressing ethical concerns will become even more crucial as generative AI capabilities expand. As such, we will continue to invest and innovate to provide the most comprehensive set of capabilities across three layers of the generative AI stack, and ensure they are safe, secure, and private.
AWS is the world’s leading cloud provider, supporting millions of customers with innovative AI and ML solutions. From cost efficiency to scalability, AWS provides SMEs with the tools and infrastructure needed to stay competitive, drive innovation, and achieve growth.
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This article is part of e27’s special series on Artificial Intelligence for Startups and SMEs, where we explore the transformative power of AI in helping startups and small and mid-sized enterprises navigate today’s competitive landscape. Stay tuned for more insights from industry leaders in upcoming editions.
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