Today, I’m tearing it all down. After two decades in marketing, I’m not just changing my title; I’m changing my DNA.

For years, I felt I had made it. I navigated startups from Brunei to Singapore, believing my deep understanding of strategy was a permanent safety net. I was wrong. Standing in Singapore in 2026, looking at a job market where digital marketing manager roles are being hollowed out by automation, that safety net feels like wet paper.

The Cerulean moment

There is a scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda Priestly schools her assistant, Andy, on her lumpy blue sweater. Andy thinks she’s above the stuff in the room, but Miranda explains that her sweater wasn’t a random choice; it was the result of massive technical decisions and million-dollar investments. It was Cerulean.

Most marketers today are playing the role of Andy. Just like others, we use AI to write a caption or optimise a budget, and think we’re keeping up with the fashion of the times. We aren’t. We’re just consumers of a trend someone else engineered. In Singapore, if you’re just a user, you are replaceable.

The shift from sketch to supply chain

In 2026, the golden age of the creative has been replaced by the era of the operator. Think of it like fashion: the creative dreams up the sketch, but the gold rush—the real money—is in the supply chain. It’s in the manufacturing and logistics that get that Cerulean sweater onto the rack.

To stay relevant, I hope to be the Marketing Engineer who builds the engine room. I am moving away from the soft side of creative briefs and into the hard side of Agentic Orchestration—building systems that don’t just chat, but actually execute the entire runway show.

Also Read: How AI agents are quietly rewriting the growth marketing playbook

Three tips to own the runway in 2026

• Shift from content to context: Generic AI copy is fast fashion, where it is just cheap and disposable. I must learn how to use RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to feed AI with my 20 years of proprietary strategy, so it knows my personal branding instead of guessing.
  
• Be the plumber of legacy sprawl: Singapore businesses are terrified of the 2026 Model AI Governance Framework. Don’t be a prompt engineer; be the logic builder who can use platforms like n8n or Make.com to connect the messy data safely.
• Solve the double-data entry trap: The real gold is in regulated industries, which can be fintech and logistics. Start with Flowise to build and understand private agentic workflows that automate manual verification. Let us make sure the Cerulean fabric actually makes it across the border.

So, just like everyone out there, are you ready to put in the work? Share with me your thoughts. I need to know where the best gyms are. I’m looking for recommendations from the tech community, primarily in Singapore.

• Where are the engine rooms? Which labs (like those at One-North or the Sea AI CoE) are building infrastructure rather than just AI wrappers?
• Where do I learn the hard stuff? Who is teaching agentic logic and workflow automation for non-CS veterans?
• To the founders: Are you building a platform that moves beyond writing and into doing?

The runway for digital marketers has ended. The runway for marketing engineers is just beginning. Let’s stop wearing the lumpy blue sweater and start designing the Cerulean.

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Featherless AI, the open-source AI infrastructure platform that hosts more than 3,000 models, has announced a new round of investment led by Kickstart Ventures, signalling a broader shift in how enterprises think about AI ownership and infrastructure independence.

The funding is intended to accelerate the company’s core mission: making open-source AI practical and reliable at scale. Unlike subscription-based access to proprietary large language models, Featherless AI allows enterprises to build on infrastructure they own rather than one they merely rent. This is a distinction the company says is increasingly critical as AI becomes central to business operations.

“The first wave of adoption was defined by proprietary, closed-door ecosystems. We provide a neutral ground for a second phase,” the company said in a statement.

The company framed the investment as marking a turning point in the AI market. “While the first wave of adoption was defined by proprietary, closed-door ecosystems, we provide a neutral ground for a second phase where companies can own and run their own models without being tethered to a single cloud provider or a restricted tech stack.”

A central pillar of the Featherless AI strategy is hardware diversity. Through a strategic partnership with AMD, the platform ensures its catalogue of open-source models runs natively on AMD’s ROCm.

Also Read: Without governance, AI agents risk becoming enterprise chaos engines

The company says this provides a “competitive, auditable alternative to proprietary hardware systems”, giving businesses a structural cost advantage over those locked into single-vendor GPU ecosystems.

Joan Yao, a General Partner at Kickstart Ventures, highlighted the platform’s relevance to emerging markets. “Featherless is making frontier AI accessible at a fraction of the cost — and that matters enormously in markets like Southeast Asia, where the next wave of AI-native builders shouldn’t have to pay hyperscaler prices to compete,” she said. “That’s exactly the kind of infrastructure bet we want to be behind.”

Countering AI monopolies with open architecture

Beyond commercial viability, Featherless AI has positioned itself as a structural counterweight to what it describes as the danger of AI monopolies. By ensuring that state-of-the-art models remain accessible outside proprietary “walled gardens”, the platform aims to preserve developer flexibility and prevent any single company from gatekeeping the tools used to build the next generation of applications.

The company’s technical credibility rests on original research. The founding team is responsible for RWKV, a breakthrough open-source architecture developed as a challenger to the transformer models that have dominated the field since the publication of the “Attention Is All You Need” paper in 2017. RWKV offers an alternative design that the team argues is more efficient and equally capable, a claim that has attracted significant attention from the research community.

For enterprises weighing the cost and strategic risk of reliance on closed AI systems, Featherless AI is presenting itself as a third path: the performance and breadth of a managed platform, without the dependency on a proprietary provider.

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Image Credit: Featherless AI

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Software engineers with AI skills now earn between 13 per cent and 25 per cent more than their peers, marking a significant shift from just a year ago when AI capabilities had little effect on compensation, according to a new industry report.

NodeFlair, a tech career platform based in Singapore, published its Tech Salary Report 2026 this week, drawing on more than 230,000 verified salary data points across roles and markets.

The findings point to a tech labour market in which AI fluency has moved from a desirable attribute to a measurable financial advantage.

“AI fluency is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s now a salary advantage,” said Ethan Ang, founder of NodeFlair. “Just a year ago, coding with large language models still felt more experimental than transformative for many teams. In 2025, that changed quickly.”

The report also reveals a widening salary gap between junior and senior engineers. Salaries for senior, lead and manager-level roles rose 10.8 per cent or more, compared with 5.3 per cent for junior positions and just 1.7 per cent for mid-level engineers.

Also Read: Philippines’s talent deficit is becoming an economic risk

The divergence reflects growing demand for experienced engineers who can make architectural decisions, manage ambiguity and deploy AI tools to greater effect.

Ang said engineering leaders described AI as increasingly capable of handling execution tasks traditionally assigned to entry-level staff, e.g writing routine code faster and at lower cost. However, he noted that higher-order skills such as system design, trade-off analysis and navigating complex requirements remain areas where experienced engineers hold a clear edge.

At the top of the market, the highest-earning 10 per cent of engineers saw salary increases of up to 19 per cent, further widening the gap between top performers and the broader workforce.

What changed in 2025

NodeFlair attributed the turnaround to two converging factors: the maturation of AI coding tools into production-grade workflows, and a shift in how employers assess technical talent.

In 2024, many companies were still running pilots, and the productivity case for AI remained unclear. By 2025, tools enabling agentic coding workflows had become widely adopted, making the return on AI investment more tangible and prompting companies to price AI skills accordingly.

For early-career engineers, Ang urged embracing AI rather than treating it as a competitive threat. He noted that, on the ground, younger engineers have been quicker to adopt AI tools than their senior counterparts, and that pairing those skills with strong fundamentals in problem-solving and system design remains the most durable path to career value.

Also Read: What happens when AI starts talking to AI at work

The next wave

Looking ahead, NodeFlair expects the largest salary premiums to accrue not to those holding AI-specific job titles, but to professionals who combine domain expertise with practical AI execution — product managers who can prototype with AI, data professionals who can move AI models into production, and engineers who can work fluidly alongside AI agents.

“The biggest premiums will go to people who can combine domain expertise with AI execution,” Ang said. “Not just knowing the tools, but knowing how to apply them to create measurable business value.”

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Image Credit: NodeFlair

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In the past three years, two of the most well-funded veterinary technology startups in the world have quietly shut down.

Fuzzy, a US telehealth platform for pets, raised US$80.5 million before closing in 2024. ZumVet, Singapore’s best-known vet-tech startup, raised US$3.7 million before winding down the same year. Neither failed because the founders were wrong about the problem. Pet healthcare is genuinely broken — fragmented records, inconsistent quality, and no data continuity when an animal changes clinics.

They failed because they tried to solve it with software first.

I’ve spent the last two years building veterinary infrastructure across Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, and I’ve come to believe that the sequence matters more than the product. In regulated, trust-based industries, software is the last layer you build, not the first. If you invert that order, your burn rate scales faster than your adoption, and no amount of funding will close the gap.

The software-first trap

The standard vet-tech playbook looks rational on paper. Build a clean, modern product. Sell it directly to clinics or consumers. Use growth capital to subsidise acquisition until network effects kick in.

The problem is that veterinary medicine is not a software adoption problem. It is a trust and workflow problem. Clinics don’t switch their practice management system because the new one has a better interface. They switch — or don’t switch — based on whether their technicians can run a full day of appointments without the system failing, whether patient histories survive migration, and whether the vendor will still exist in five years.

None of those is solved by a better onboarding flow. They are solved by being embedded in the infrastructure that clinics already depend on — regulatory registries, diagnostic equipment, referral networks, and supplier relationships. Companies that start with software have to manufacture this trust through sales and marketing spend. Companies that start with infrastructure inherit it.

What we did differently

When we started building in Southeast Asia, we deliberately reversed the order. We built the network before we built the SaaS.

The first product was a microchip registry — arguably the least exciting product in vet-tech. It is also one of the most load-bearing. A microchip registry is the one database a clinic cannot operate without once microchipping becomes mandatory. It touches government, breeders, importers, insurance, and every clinic that scans an animal.

Also Read: How SMEs can vet and choose AI partners that truly deliver

We spent three years on registry, partner onboarding, and regulatory relationships before launching a full practice management system. Today, the network covers more than 880 partner hospitals and over 110,000 registered animals across three countries, with roughly 30 per cent market share in Thailand. The SaaS layer, which we recently launched, sits on top of that — not in front of it.

The point is not that microchips are the answer. The point is that in any regulated vertical, there is usually one boring piece of infrastructure that every participant has to touch. If you build that piece first, every subsequent product you launch inherits distribution. If you skip it, every product launch is a cold start.

Three things I’d tell another founder

• First, identify the load-bearing layer in your industry before you decide what to build. In vet-tech, it is registries and diagnostic workflow. In fintech, it is KYC and settlement. In logistics, it is customs and warehousing. These are rarely the most fundable ideas, because they look operational rather than technological. That is exactly why they are defensible once you own them.
• Second, accept that the first three years will look slow by venture standards. We operated for most of our early history without institutional funding. That was partly constraint and partly choice — raising a large round early would have pushed us toward the software-first playbook, because capital needs to be deployed into things investors can measure quarterly. Infrastructure does not produce quarterly metrics. It produces compounding ones.
• Third, be sceptical of comparables. When a founder in your category raises US$50 million and gets written up as the category leader, the instinct is to copy the model. But the company that raises first is not always the company that wins. In veterinary software specifically, the correlation between funding raised and long-term survival has been negative. The companies still operating in Southeast Asia are almost entirely bootstrapped or lightly funded. That is not a coincidence.

Also Read: How telemedicine can revolutionise the veterinary world?

Timing matters, but only if the infrastructure is ready

Regulatory tailwinds are arriving across the region. Thailand made pet microchipping mandatory in January 2026. Malaysia announced a mandatory pilot the following month. More markets will follow.

Regulation is a powerful forcing function, but it rewards whoever is already operating the infrastructure. It does not reward whoever has the best-marketed software. A founder who starts building a registry the day the mandate is announced is already three years behind.

The broader lesson, I think, is that the most common failure mode in regulated verticals is not building the wrong product. It is building the right product in the wrong order. Software is easier to build than trust, which is why founders default to it. But in industries where the end user has to believe the system will still work in a decade, trust has to come first, and software has to serve it.

The vet-tech graveyard is not a story about bad products. It is a story about inverted sequences.

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The financial services industry does not have a shortage of fraud tools. However, most fraud and AML platforms were built for a world where attacks were opportunistic and patterns were predictable. That world is gone.

Today, fraud operations run with the discipline of a software company’s continuous iteration, AI-generated synthetic identities that pass KYC, and cross-channel coordination that exposes every silo in a legacy architecture. The platforms built to catch yesterday’s fraud cannot keep up with today’s.

Zoven is built for this moment.

Founded by Vivek Karna and Prashanth YV, both fintech veterans who spent years watching fraud and compliance teams fight a losing battle with the wrong tools, Zoven is the platform they wished had existed.

Beyond rules. Beyond dashboards.

At the heart of the Zoven platform is its Fraud Risk and AML product  and it is different from every other tool in this category in one fundamental way.

Traditional fraud and AML platforms offer three things: rule creation, case management, and regulatory report generation. These are the baselines but also backward looking. They do not help your team understand what it means, why it matters, or what to do about it. Zoven does all three and then adds an intelligence layer that no legacy platform can replicate.

Feed Zoven your Standard Operating Procedures. Our AI agents execute every step, run the investigation end to end, and produce detailed reports with crisp summaries. Your fraud and AML teams don’t start cold. They start informed, and they move fast.

Consider what this means operationally. A fraud analyst opening a case today spends the first hour on retrieval  pulling transaction history, running entity checks, reviewing related cases. None of that is analytical work. Zoven’s AI agents complete it in seconds and deliver a structured preliminary report the moment the case is opened. What the analyst does next is reasoning, not retrieval. It is the work that actually stops fraud.

Now open for onboarding

Zoven is now accepting early customers across India, the United States,  and Southeast Asia. The programme is designed for banks, fintechs, and payment facilitators that are ready to move beyond legacy fraud infrastructure.

Early customers receive direct access to the Zoven product team, SOP integration support, a custom pilot scoped to one product or fraud typology, and founding customer pricing. Institutions operating with Zoven’s early access programme have seen preliminary investigation time drop from hours to minutes within the first 30 days of deployment.

The best way to understand what Zoven does is to see it on your own data. Institutions interested in early access are invited to book a demonstration at zoven.ai.

About Zoven

Zoven is an AI-native risk intelligence Platform building infrastructure for the next generation of fraud prevention, AML compliance, and merchant risk management. Its platform manages the entire merchant risk lifecycle  from onboarding and transaction monitoring through to chargeback resolution and regulatory reporting  through a single intelligent system. Zoven is headquartered in Bengaluru, India, and is currently onboarding customers across India, the United States, and Southeast Asia.

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For today’s business traveller, the list of essentials has changed. A passport still gets you across the border, but connectivity is no longer something to sort out after landing. It has become part of what makes international travel function in real time.

For business travellers and globally mobile professionals, connectivity is now part of the journey’s basic infrastructure. It supports everything from transport coordination and hotel access to navigation, work tools, and communication across time zones.

That shift is happening at a meaningful scale: GBTA projected global business travel spending to grow from US$1.57 trillion in 2025, with a further 8.1 per cent increase forecast for 2026. The point is not just that more business travel is happening, but that reliable connectivity has become more central to making those trips productive. 

That is also why eSIM is gaining relevance in international travel. Juniper Research forecasts that the number of devices using eSIMs will reach 1.5 billion globally in 2026, up 30 per cent from 1.2 billion in 2025. That growth is not simply about newer technology; it reflects rising demand for more immediate and seamless connectivity across borders. 

In that sense, eSIM is moving beyond being a tech option and becoming a more practical part of how modern travellers stay operational abroad.

Travel no longer begins when you leave the airport

Travel once allowed for a short transition period after landing. Today, that buffer is much smaller, and the first hour after arrival is often the most operationally important part of the trip.

A traveller may need to message a driver, confirm a meeting, access a hotel booking, open a map, receive a one-time password, or coordinate with colleagues in real time. For business travellers, that same window may also include work email, calendar updates, and time-sensitive decisions.

In other words, travel is no longer something people do first and digitise later. It is digital from the start.

That shift matters. When a journey depends on connected services from the first moments after arrival, connectivity stops being a convenience layer and becomes a core travel utility.

This is especially true for professionals who travel frequently across borders. A delayed connection is no longer a minor inconvenience. It can interrupt schedules, slow decisions, and create avoidable disruption at the exact moment continuity matters most.

Also Read: How eSIM can cut costs, boost CX, and simplify global operations for APAC startups

The old ways of staying connected are increasingly misaligned with modern travel

The issue is not a lack of connectivity options. It is that many traditional options no longer match the pace and expectations of modern travel.

Roaming, airport SIM purchases, and physical SIM swapping were built around an older travel model. But business travel has changed faster than those habits have.

Business trips now often span multiple markets. Travellers are expected to stay responsive in transit, and teams coordinate across countries and time zones as a matter of routine. For many professionals, international mobility is no longer exceptional. It is simply part of how work gets done.

That normalisation is reflected in traveller behaviour. GBTA reports that 80 per cent of business travellers surveyed say they now travel for work as much as or more than they did in 2019.

In that context, legacy connectivity habits begin to feel out of place.

Roaming can still create uncertainty around cost and usage. Buying a SIM on arrival adds friction at the very moment travellers want speed and clarity. Physical SIM swapping is also inconvenient for professionals who depend on their primary number or work device.

That is the real issue. The complexity is no longer justified by the moment.

When international travel becomes more connected, more fast-moving, and more digitally dependent, the expectation shifts from “find a way to get online” to “be online when it matters.”

eSIM fits the way people travel now

This is where eSIM is changing the experience.

eSIM matters not just because it removes the physical SIM card, but because it allows connectivity to be planned and activated in a way that better fits modern travel.

Instead of depending on airport counters or last-minute decisions, travellers can arrange connectivity before departure and land with data already set up or ready to activate. Mobile access becomes part of trip preparation, much like flights, hotels, or visas.

• The first benefit is preparedness. Travellers can begin a trip knowing connectivity is already addressed, removing uncertainty from one of the most important parts of international travel.
• The second benefit is immediacy. The first minutes after landing become easier when maps, messaging, ride-hailing, email, and booking platforms are already within reach.
• The third benefit is continuity. For travellers moving across countries, eSIM reduces the repeated friction of managing separate local SIMs or making new purchase decisions at each border.
• The fourth benefit is simplicity. Professionals are not looking for more telecom decisions while they are travelling. They are looking for fewer interruptions.

That is why eSIM is becoming more relevant. It aligns with what international travellers value most: predictability, speed, and smoother movement across borders.

Also Read: The impact of eSIM on international roaming and travel

Market adoption is moving in the same direction. Juniper Research forecasts that the number of travel eSIM users globally will grow from 40 million in 2024 to more than 215 million by 2028.

This is not just a traveller benefit, it is an enterprise one

The significance of this shift extends beyond individual convenience.

For businesses, travel connectivity has a direct effect on employee productivity, coordination, punctuality, and travel experience. Small moments of delay may seem minor in isolation, but they add up quickly across larger teams, more frequent trips, and tighter travel schedules.

A traveller who cannot access directions, transport, work platforms, authentication tools, or communication channels on arrival is not simply inconvenienced. They are temporarily disconnected from the systems that help the trip function as planned.

For enterprises with regional teams, mobile workforces, client-facing employees, or frequent international travel needs, that matters. Connectivity is part of operational readiness.

Seen through that lens, eSIM is not just a consumer travel upgrade. It is part of a broader shift toward making international travel more seamless and work-ready, helping employees stay connected, reachable, and productive with less friction.

As companies think more seriously about travel efficiency and employee experience, connectivity deserves to be part of that conversation.

The list of travel essentials has changed

Cross-border travel now depends on digital continuity in ways that were far less critical even a decade ago. Crossing a border is no longer just a physical movement. It is also the point at which travellers need to stay connected to the tools and systems that keep the journey moving.

That is why the definition of a travel essential is expanding.

A passport still gets you across the border. But in practical terms, connectivity is what helps you function once you do.

eSIM is gaining relevance because it is better suited to a travel environment where connectivity needs to be ready before disruption begins. As international travel becomes more digital and more time-sensitive, the tools people consider essential will continue to evolve with it.

In that new hierarchy, eSIM is moving closer to the top of the list.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. You can also share your perspective by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

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A few years ago, a global workplace survey landed with a stat that was sharp enough to travel everywhere: 69% of employees said their manager affected their mental health as much as their spouse or partner. It was memorable, slightly uncomfortable, and for many people, not all that surprising.

But the more important point in 2026 is not whether managers matter as much as spouses. It is that everyday management quietly sets the operating conditions for mental health at work.

In my work with Fortune 500 companies across regions, I have seen this play out repeatedly: team strain is rarely driven by one dramatic event, but by the daily management patterns that shape pressure, clarity, pacing and recovery.

That sounds soft until you look at what managers actually control.

Managers shape how much ambiguity people sit with. They influence how quickly teams are expected to respond, how often priorities change, whether meetings swamp the day, whether people can ask for clarification without looking incompetent, and whether pressure comes in short bursts or settles into something more chronic. The World Health Organisation is clear that excessive workloads, low job control, low support, discrimination and job insecurity are all risks to mental health at work. In real organisations, managers often sit right in the middle of those conditions.

This is why the manager question matters more now, not less.

Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace points to manager engagement as a key pressure point in today’s workplace. When managers are stretched, unsupported, or disengaged, the effects do not stay neatly contained at the manager level. They flow down into the team through poorer communication, less clarity, weaker follow-through, and lower-quality support. Gallup’s argument is simple: if managers are not doing well, teams usually feel it.

That matters in modern work because many teams are not collapsing under one dramatic crisis. They are being worn down by repeated small overloads.

Also Read: The Vietnam startup visa gap: Why founders are renting, not residing

A priority shifts at 4:45 pm. A message arrives marked urgent with no real context. A team member spends the morning in meetings, then has to do their actual work after hours. Another sits on a problem too long because asking early feels risky. None of this looks dramatic in isolation. Together, it creates friction, attention residue, rework and strain.

This is where management becomes behavioural, not theoretical.

A good manager reduces unnecessary load. They create clearer response norms so that everything does not feel equally urgent. They make it easier to raise risks early. They notice when a person needs more clarity, not more pressure. They protect some degree of recovery instead of treating availability as commitment. They know that a team can look functional on paper while quietly leaking energy, judgment, and patience.

That last point is especially important in hybrid and remote work. Gallup’s 2025 reporting found a paradox: remote employees can show higher engagement while also reporting lower well-being. In other words, people may be productive and committed while still feeling more isolated, stressed or emotionally strained. That should be a warning to leaders who still treat performance and well-being as if they naturally move together. Sometimes they do not.

The lazy version of the conversation is to ask whether remote, hybrid or on-site work is best. The better question is what kind of management people are experiencing inside those models.

Are expectations clear?

Do people have enough control over how work gets done?

Is there a realistic path to doing focused work without constant interruption?

Can someone admit they are at capacity before a missed deadline forces the issue?

Can friction be repaired without blame hanging in the air for weeks?

These questions do not sit in a wellbeing programme. They sit in daily management.

This is also why perks so often underperform. Meditation apps, free lunches and one-off resilience workshops may be well-intended, but they cannot compensate for chaotic priorities, poor communication and a manager who signals that boundaries are optional for “real” performers. If the system keeps producing overload, no well-being strategy at the edges will be enough.

Also Read: Excel turns 41 – why it still runs the modern workplace

The practical implication is not that managers should become therapists. It is that leaders need to stop underestimating how much management behaviour shapes cognitive and emotional load.

The strongest managers do a few things consistently.

They reduce ambiguity early. They name what matters most this week. They distinguish between urgent and simply visible. They check in without putting people on the spot. They normalise clarification. They acknowledge effort, then remove blockers. They make it easier for people to recover after friction or mistakes rather than stewing in them. None of this is flashy. All of it changes how work feels in the body and how sustainable performance becomes over time.

This is not about making work endlessly comfortable. Fast-growing companies will always have pressure. Startups, especially, will always face uncertainty, compressed timelines and imperfect information. The question is whether managers turn that reality into useful momentum or into chronic overload.

If leaders want teams that can perform without tipping into constant strain, the most underestimated place to look is not the app budget or the wellness calendar. It is the quality of everyday management.

Because long before burnout shows up in an exit interview, it is often being shaped in smaller moments: how pressure is communicated, how support is offered, what gets rewarded, and whether ambitious work is pursued in ways people can actually sustain.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. You can also share your perspective by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

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US equity futures advanced in early trading, with Nasdaq 100 futures gaining 0.9 per cent and S&P 500 futures up 0.4 per cent in Asian sessions, supported by strong after-hours results from Alphabet and Amazon.

This optimism meets a sobering reality as Brent crude surged 1.9 per cent to US$120.30 a barrel, a level not seen since mid-2022, driven by uncertainty over a potential blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady at 3.50 per cent to 3.75 per cent on Wednesday, with Chair Powell explicitly citing elevated inflation and geopolitical uncertainty, sets a cautious tone that permeates every asset class.

Corporate earnings provide both relief and concern. Alphabet and Amazon shares climbed in late-session trading, reinforcing the ongoing AI-investment boom that continues to drive capital allocation across technology. Meta Platforms told a different story, slumping in after-hours trading as investors questioned the sustainability of its high capital expenditure levels.

Qualcomm’s 13 per cent rally on significant progress in the data-centre market signals that semiconductor demand remains robust beyond traditional end markets. All eyes now turn to Apple, set to report earnings today, which will serve as the final major test for the Magnificent Seven this season. The divergence among these names reflects a market that is increasingly selective about which growth narratives merit premium valuations in a higher-rate environment.

Geopolitical tensions dominate the macro backdrop. Reports of a US naval blockade and an escalating conflict in Iran have injected volatility into energy markets, while the UAE’s reported exit from OPEC adds another layer of supply-side uncertainty. Asian shares fell at the open on Thursday, with the ASX 200 also opening lower as investors reacted to the oil shock.

The Core PCE Price Index data for March, expected during this session, will serve as a critical input for the Fed’s next policy assessment. This confluence of factors creates a market environment in which traditional correlations break down, and risk assets face heightened scrutiny.

Also Read: Why institutional money is buying crypto while geopolitical risks mount

Within this complex backdrop, crypto-focused equities tell a particularly revealing story. Listed crypto plays experienced a broad sell-off, with Robinhood dropping about 14 per cent after reporting a 47 per cent year-over-year collapse in crypto transaction revenue. Coinbase, Bullish, Gemini, Riot, and Marathon all declined roughly six to eight per cent on the day, while MicroStrategy fell about four per cent.

Across the same window, Bitcoin traded just below US$76,000, down only 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent. This divergence underscores a critical distinction that many investors overlook: crypto-linked equities behave more like leveraged technology and fintech exposures than like Bitcoin itself.

From my perspective, this dynamic reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how macro forces transmit through different layers of the digital asset ecosystem. When oil prices surge toward US$120 a barrel, headline inflation expectations rise, pushing Treasury yields higher and compressing multiples for long-duration, speculative equities.

Crypto exchanges depend on trading volumes that have already weakened, while miners operate capital-intensive businesses perceived as highly cyclical. These characteristics make their stocks particularly sensitive to shifts in macro risk appetite, even when the underlying cryptocurrency demonstrates relative resilience.

The market’s reaction reveals that investors still price crypto equities through a traditional growth-stock lens rather than appreciating the unique value accrual mechanisms of decentralised protocols.

Three variables warrant close attention moving forward.

• First, oil prices and war headlines: sustained crude above US$100 per barrel keeps inflation pressure elevated and delays the timeline for rate cuts, creating a persistent headwind for high-beta crypto equities.
• Second, central bank signals: if the Fed or other major central banks adopt a more hawkish stance in response to energy-driven inflation, equity multiples for speculative sectors face further compression.
• Third, sector fundamentals: upcoming earnings from listed exchanges and miners will reveal whether the current selloff reflects pure macro beta or signals weakening business models. Crypto volumes, fee trends, power costs, and pivots toward AI and high-performance computing will all factor into this assessment.

Also Read: While you were sleeping: Iran closed a critical oil route and crypto exploits

The latest slide in crypto-related stocks reflects a macro shock rather than a crypto-specific failure. Surging oil prices feed inflation worries, pin interest rates higher, and punish high-beta, speculative equities across the board.

For investors navigating this landscape, the key distinction is recognising that listed brokers and miners have dual exposure: they participate in Bitcoin cycles while remaining vulnerable to energy-driven macro cycles. Monitoring oil trajectories, Fed expectations, and sector-specific earnings becomes essential when assessing risk in these vehicles versus holding the underlying digital assets.

Mainstream narratives often conflate spot crypto performance with equity proxies, but the transmission mechanisms differ substantially. In a world where geopolitical risk and monetary policy intersect with technological innovation, clarity about these distinctions separates informed positioning from reactive trading.

The path forward demands attention to both the macro forces shaping all risk assets and the unique fundamentals driving decentralised networks. Only by holding both lenses can investors navigate the volatility ahead with conviction rather than confusion.

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The post Crypto plunges, big tech earnings are strong. So why are markets nervous? appeared first on e27.

A few weeks ago, I noticed something small but telling.

In a workshop setting, a group of capable adults hesitated before making simple decisions. Not because the task was difficult, but because they were looking for the “right answer.”

This behaviour isn’t new. What’s new is the environment we’re placing it in.

AI agents are no longer just supporting work. They are starting to make decisions inside workflows — prioritising tasks, drafting responses, recommending actions. Increasingly, those outputs are accepted with minimal challenge.

That shift deserves closer attention.

From tool to decision layer

Traditional software helped people execute faster. AI agents introduce a different layer — they don’t just assist, they interpret and act.

In practical terms:

• A single operator can now handle work that previously required multiple roles
• Decision cycles are shorter
• Outputs are more standardised

For startups and lean teams across Southeast Asia, this is a clear advantage. It enables faster iteration, leaner structures, and lower operational cost — critical in competitive markets like Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

But it also changes how decisions are made.

The hidden trade-off

When AI agents take over parts of decision-making, fewer decisions are made consciously by humans.

Instead, decisions are:

• Accepted,
• Lightly reviewed,
• Or, passed through.

This reduces friction and increases speed. But over time, it can also reduce critical thinking.

This is not a failure of technology. It is a shift in behaviour.

And behavioural shifts scale quietly.

Also Read: Hospitality needs to treat AI agents like a new channel, not a new feature

Who owns the decision?

AI agents are already embedded in high-impact areas:

• Customer support triage
• Fraud detection
• Hiring filters
• Marketing automation
• Internal knowledge workflows

Across Southeast Asia, companies are actively experimenting with these systems to improve efficiency and scale without proportional headcount growth.

But while agents influence decisions, they do not carry accountability.

When something goes wrong, responsibility still sits with the human or organisation.

The challenge is that ownership becomes blurred when:

• Recommendations are automated
• Decision logic is not fully visible
• Human roles shift from judgment to approval

This creates a grey zone that many teams have not fully addressed.

Where AI agents work well

AI agents perform best in environments where:

• Problems are clearly defined
• Data is structured
• Outcomes are measurable

This includes:

• Workflow automation
• Data processing
• Pattern recognition
• Repetitive decision frameworks

In these areas, agents can significantly improve speed and consistency.

For example, many regional platforms already use AI-assisted systems to:

• Flag suspicious transactions
• Prioritise customer tickets
• Optimise delivery or matching systems

These are strong use cases because the boundaries are clear.

Where they fall short

AI agents struggle in areas that require:

• Contextual judgment
• Understanding of human nuance
• Ethical consideration
• Long-term thinking

These are not edge cases.

Also Read: The one-person company was always possible. AI agents make it probable

They sit at the core of leadership, strategy, and people management.

For instance, deciding whether to:

• Override a customer policy
• Hire a non-traditional candidate
• Pivot a product direction

These decisions depend on factors that extend beyond data patterns.

They require judgment.

The real risk is not replacement

Much of the conversation around AI focuses on job displacement.

A more immediate risk is different:

People are becoming passive in decision-making.

When systems consistently provide “good enough” answers, the incentive to think deeply decreases.

Over time, this can lead to:

• Reduced confidence in independent judgment
• Over-reliance on system outputs
• Weaker decision-making capability at the individual level

For organisations, this is a capability risk.

Not visible in the short term, but significant over time.

What organisations need to design for

As AI agents become more integrated, the question is not just adoption.

It is design.

Specifically:

• Where should decisions remain fully human?
• Where can decisions be assisted, but not automated?
• How do we ensure teams continue to exercise judgment?

Some practical considerations:

• Build review layers, not just approval layers
• Encourage teams to question outputs, not just execute them
• Make decision logic more visible where possible
• Train teams on limitations, not just usage

The goal is not to slow down AI adoption.

It is to prevent silent over-dependence.

Also Read: When AI agents take the lead in decision-making, who answers when they mess up?

A capability worth protecting

Decision-making is not just a function.

It is a capability built through repeated use.

When people stop making decisions — even small ones — that capability weakens.

AI agents will continue to improve. That trajectory is clear.

The more important question is whether human capability improves alongside them, or declines quietly in the background.

Closing thought

AI agents are reshaping how work gets done — compressing roles, accelerating execution, and redefining team structures.

But they should not replace one critical function:

Human judgment.

Because organisations don’t just run on efficiency.

They run on people who can think, question, and take responsibility when it matters.

—

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. You can also share your perspective by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

The post When AI agents start deciding, what happens to human judgment? appeared first on e27.

The Asia-Pacific startup ecosystem is entering a period defined by uncertainty. Markets are tightening, regulations are shifting, and online outrage cycles can erupt within minutes. For tech founders, this volatility creates a new reality: a single misstep in communication can undo years of work. Companies with strong fundamentals can lose trust overnight. Teams can be blindsided by narratives they did not create but are forced to respond to under pressure.

In this environment, communications readiness is no longer a nice-to-have. It is a strategic advantage. Startups that anticipate risk, prepare clear messaging, and build strong stakeholder relationships move through crises with far less damage. Those without a plan often learn, painfully, that silence and improvisation do not protect reputation. They accelerate the collapse.

Crisis readiness is not about predicting every threat. It is about building the communication muscle to respond with clarity, speed, and honesty when uncertainty strikes.

Why APAC founders face greater exposure

Asia-Pacific founders operate in a landscape that amplifies communication challenges. The region’s diversity in culture, regulation, and consumer expectations makes every crisis more complex to manage.

• Regulatory landscapes shift faster in APAC: New data, fintech, AI, and content regulations can emerge without long lead time. A product feature that is compliant today can raise questions tomorrow. Founders who do not track regulatory trends or prepare proactive communication often end up reacting defensively under scrutiny.
• Social media backlash escalates quickly: APAC countries have some of the world’s highest social media usage. A single negative post can become a national conversation. Screenshots travel across borders. Local outrage can become regional within hours. This speed punishes unprepared founders and rewards companies that know how to step in early with context and accountability.
• The region expects transparency but rarely receives it: Consumers across APAC have become far more informed and vocal. They expect companies to explain decisions, admit errors, and show responsibility. Yet many founders still rely on closed-door communication styles. This mismatch creates credibility gaps during crises.
• Investor pressure is intense: Many APAC investors still prioritise operational discipline and responsible scaling. A communication slip is often interpreted as a leadership slip. Founders who cannot manage narratives risk damaging relationships with the people keeping the company funded.

These factors create an environment where every tech company, regardless of size, is one unforeseen event away from a reputational crisis.

The new crisis realities for startups

Crises today are not always dramatic. Most begin quietly. A product downtime. A misunderstood feature. An unexplained policy update. A user complaint is gaining traction. A regulatory notice. A viral tweet framed without context.

The danger is not always the event. The danger is the vacuum.

If a company does not fill that vacuum with clear information, social media, competitors, and speculation will fill it for them. The narrative forms before founders even realise something is wrong.

Modern crisis management is therefore less about putting out fires and more about preventing those fires from defining the company.

Also Read: How efficient communication drives positive relationships in product development

Why communication is a leadership skill, not a PR task

A crisis exposes the founder more than the product. Teams, investors, and customers look for signals of clarity and composure. Poor communication from the top accelerates panic. Strong communication reduces fear.

Effective crisis communication from founders depends on three qualities:

• Clarity: Unclear statements, vague explanations, or defensive messaging worsen the situation. Founders must deliver direct, jargon-free communication that addresses the issue, the impact, and the next steps.
• Speed: Waiting to respond usually backfires. The early message does not have to be perfect. It has to be real, acknowledging the situation and promising more details soon.
• Accountability: People do not demand perfection from companies. They demand ownership. Founders who accept responsibility, empathise with those affected, and outline corrective action recover faster.

Communication is not spin. It is leadership in public.

The essential elements of a crisis-ready communications strategy

A crisis-ready founder does not rely on improvisation. They have systems, frameworks, and relationships in place long before something goes wrong.

Below are the components every APAC startup should build today.

• A clear crisis response protocol

Every team should know:

• Who speaks
• Who approves messaging
• Who coordinates internal communication
• Who handles investors, customers, and regulators

This prevents delays and confusion, which are two of the biggest drivers of damage.

• Pre-approved messaging foundations

Founders should maintain templates for:

• Outage acknowledgements
• Data issue statements
• Compliance clarifications
• Apology formats
• Social media responses
  

These are not “copy-paste documents,” but structured starting points that save time when pressure hits.

• A single source of truth for updates

During crises, people search for information everywhere. If messages differ slightly across channels, trust erodes.

Founders must establish:

• One primary channel for official updates
• A consistent rhythm of communication
• A clear escalation plan based on new developments
  

Consistency protects credibility.

Also Read: How business leaders can utilise generative AI in employee communications

• Strong relationships with media before you need them

The worst time to meet the press is during a crisis. Founders should invest in relationship-building when times are calm. When journalists already understand your company, they approach crises with context instead of suspicion.

A strong media relationship does not prevent negative coverage, but it leads to fairer, more accurate reporting.

• Internal communication that prevents team panic

In APAC companies, internal silence is often interpreted as internal trouble. Teams begin to speculate, which spreads misinformation. Clear internal communication helps employees act as informed advocates instead of confused observers.

Employees who understand the situation can support, not destabilise, the company.

• Scenario planning for realistic threats

Founders should identify their top five likely crisis scenarios. For example:

• Service downtime
• Regulatory notice
• Data vulnerability
• Public criticism from an influencer
• A viral customer complaint
  

Practising these scenarios builds the reflexes needed during real events.

Also Read: Why Asia is the next growth engine for PR and communications

Why preparedness is the new competitive advantage

Startups that prepare for crises often emerge stronger than before. They demonstrate maturity, stability, and leadership under pressure. Investors notice. Customers notice. Talent notices.

The ability to communicate clearly during uncertainty signals that the company can scale responsibly in a volatile region.

Startups that hope crises never happen often find themselves overwhelmed when they do. Preparation reduces risk, protects reputation, and strengthens relationships.

In a region as complex as Asia-Pacific, where volatility moves faster than most teams can react, crisis-ready communication is no longer optional. It is a core part of building a resilient company.

When a crisis hits, founders do not rise to the level of their ambition. They fall to the level of their preparation.

—

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. You can also share your perspective by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

The post Why APAC founders must treat communication as a leadership skill, not a PR task appeared first on e27.