Nine in ten Singapore internet users now reach for an AI tool every month. Barely a third say they are comfortable doing so. That gap between habit and confidence is the most telling finding in Digital 2027: Singapore, the annual report released today by creative agency We Are Social and media intelligence firm Meltwater.
According to the report, 89.9 per cent of Singapore internet users aged 16 and above used an AI tool in the past month, ahead of the global figure of 85.2 per cent. Yet only 34.6 per cent say they feel comfortable using such tools.
Put plainly, more than half of the city-state’s online population is leaning on a technology it does not fully trust.
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That is less contradictory than it sounds. Singaporeans have spent years living with search engines that serve ads and social feeds that serve outrage. Using a tool while keeping it at arm’s length is a familiar digital posture. Still, a gap of roughly 55 percentage points is wide enough to matter for the AI firms, brands and startups that treat Singapore as Southeast Asia’s test market.
ChatGPT leads, but search refuses to die
ChatGPT is the clear front-runner. Nearly half (48.7 per cent) of Singapore internet users used it in the past month, well above the 34.7 per cent worldwide. Google Gemini trails at 29.8 per cent.
The obituaries for search, however, look premature. Some 88 per cent of users still turn to a traditional search engine monthly, within two percentage points of AI tool usage. Even regulators are struggling with where one ends and the other begins; the EU has called ChatGPT a search engine, a label with knock-on effects for AI startups in the region.
Among active AI users in Singapore, finding information is the top reason for use (63.4 per cent), followed by getting advice on problems (39.6 per cent) and saving time or boosting efficiency (36.1 per cent). In other words, most people are using chatbots as a faster search box, the very job search engines have done for two decades.
Heavy users, light spenders
The monetisation picture is less flattering. Just 8.1 per cent of Singapore internet users pay for an AI subscription, below the global average of 9.5 per cent. For one of Asia’s wealthiest markets, and one that outpaces the world on usage, that is a notable shortfall.
The release does not explain why, nor does it break the figure down by age or income. But the pattern fits a wider story: free tiers are generous, employers increasingly supply the tools, and Gen Z workers are bringing their own AI to the office regardless of company policy. Why pay at home for something you use at work and only half trust?
For model makers pouring money into Asia Pacific expansion, that is an awkward data point. High engagement with little willingness to pay is the same trap that caught a generation of Southeast Asian consumer internet startups.
Real or fake? Singapore isn’t sure
The trust deficit stretches well beyond AI. Nearly three in four (73.4 per cent) online news consumers in Singapore worry about what is real and what is fake on the internet, the eighth-highest level in the report.
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That anxiety is not paranoia. Deepfake fraud losses have climbed into the billions globally, and Singapore has leaned hard on platforms, including enlisting Google’s AI to flag scams before victims hit send. The chatbots carry their own credibility baggage, with recent research showing AI models can cave on facts under pressure, and Southeast Asian languages may fare worst.
Singapore ranks ninth globally for AI comfort. That sounds respectable until you remember what ninth place is worth here: barely a third of users. If that is a top-ten score, public confidence in AI is thin almost everywhere.
Brands still get found the old-fashioned way
For marketers, the report punctures some of the hype around AI-led discovery. Only 23 per cent of Singapore internet users use AI tools as a main source when researching brands, and just 12.6 per cent discover new brands through them. Search engines (51 per cent), product and brand websites (37.4 per cent) and social networks (34.9 per cent) still dominate.
None of this makes optimising for AI answers a fad. Southeast Asia’s sellers now have to learn to sell to AI, and those discovery numbers will climb. But today, a brand that neglects its search ranking to chase chatbot mentions is optimising for the minority.
Social media remains the main stage. 94 per cent of Singapore’s population has an active social media user identity, and internet users aged 16 and above juggle an average of 7.3 platforms a month. WhatsApp reaches 84.8 per cent, while Instagram commands the most time among the major apps at one hour 45 minutes a day. Singapore also ranks fourth for LinkedIn use and joint sixth for Reddit, and more than a third of social users say reading news is a main reason they log on.
Read the sales pitch between the numbers
The report’s authors have drawn their own lessons. Mimrah Mahmood, APAC Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Meltwater, said brands must understand how they show up “from search and social to AI answers”. Arthur Altounian, Managing Director of We Are Social Singapore, put it more pointedly: “Singaporeans have embraced AI, but they haven’t handed it their trust.” The brands that grow in 2027, he argued, “will be the most believed”, not the most visible.
Also Read: Inside Singapore’s AI push: Lighthouses, rice importers and robot labs
Both conclusions line up neatly with what each firm sells: cross-channel monitoring in Meltwater’s case, creator-led campaigns in We Are Social’s. That does not make them wrong, since reach and credibility are not the same thing in the creator economy. But readers should note who is drawing the conclusions, and that the release discloses neither sample sizes nor survey methodology.
The bigger question is whether trust ever catches up with usage, or whether Singaporeans settle into a permanent state of wary dependence. For AI companies, the answer will decide whether 89.9 per cent usage turns into revenue. For everyone else, the 73.4 per cent who worry about telling real from fake may be the number that matters most.
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