18-07-2025
How to embrace AI without losing ourselves
Above Dorothy Yiu is the co-founder and CEO of EngageRocket, an award-winning Singapore-based employee engagement platform (Photo: EngageRocket)
AI is here to stay; you either adapt or die. That's the reality of things
- Dorothy Yiu - Being more human
Both Yiu and Tang highlight the importance of coaching. Performance might be better measured through systems that can track indicators and generate progress reports. But the human aspect of spending time with someone and seeing them, as we do when we coach, could lead to even more meaningful insights. As Yiu says, it involves conversations like, 'Hey, what's your ambition? Where do you see yourself in the next year or two years? How can we set you up for success in this organisation?'
She adds that it's also human relationships that drive retention and turnover. 'People don't leave bad companies; they leave bad bosses.' This isn't likely to change just because AI systems and agents become part of work. 'You use data to help inform, right? How can we tailor our humanness and build connection? That's where data is helpful,' says Yiu. In other words, we can use data to better understand our teams and flag challenges, and we can use AI to become better managers and leaders.
'See it as a way to improve yourself,' says Cheng. 'I'm a big fan of using AI for knowledge and education. How can it help us improve on areas where we may be weak? Of course, we need to be careful when working with generative AI due to hallucinations, where it may cite untrue information, but as the models get better and offer deep research capabilities and other features, it means that we have access to an almost limitless amount of knowledge.'
Read more: AI at work: what are Singapore CEOs prioritising and finding a challenge?
Above Arvin Tang is the founder and CEO of Akin by Techlyon, a digital agency that designs impact-driven marketing campaigns backed by human behaviour data (Photo: Darren Gabriel Leow)
Tang adds, 'What does it mean for you to be human? It means the critical thinking that happens 99 per cent of the time in your brain. You might not be able to explain it but the conscious and the unconscious [are involved in] your thinking process.'
This can lead to new ideas and other positive outcomes, he says, when coupled with an AI with a different thinking model. The quality of ideas and the speed of work can increase as we combine human insights and intuitions with such powerful tools. This means we can do better and get more done much faster. The question then becomes: what do we do with our time?
Tang says that leaders will have to 'embrace and accept that it is true that they, both leaders and their teams, will do less work but not necessarily less thinking'. In his case, he sees the newly available time as an opportunity to focus on well-being and space to find innovative ideas and solutions. He tells his team: 'Make sure that you are considering new skills, new things to think about. Use your AI to learn about how this connects to performance.'
Read more: AI decoded: a guide to digital twins, synthetic media and other buzzwords
We humans still need to be the ones to plan the next step, navigate it and then use the AI as a very good compass to get there
- Arvin Tang - Leading with purpose
It's key to lead with mission, purpose and meaning— essentially, a 'why'. Tang says that a key activity for him has been to realign his company's vision to its purpose. 'This purpose-led vision allows me to align it with my and my team's personal interests as well.' He says that being purpose-driven allows them to stay fresh and excited about their work, which in turn minimises, if not prevents, burnout.
Yiu concurs, saying: 'In a world like this that's so uncertain and chaotic, more engaged employees are more resilient to change. They're willing to tough it out with you. They're willing to be more creative. They're willing to go the extra mile for the organisation when times are tough.
'We are living in an era where there are five generations in the workforce. How can I tailor my approaches to the diversity that we're seeing?' Add to that the coming introduction of non-humans into the mix, and this diversity will bring both challenges and opportunities. If we can understand the technology, be more human in our interactions and lead with purpose, then we might be on the right track to take advantage of those opportunities.
