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SINGAPORE, May 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Southeast Asia's transition from AI ambition to real-world enterprise adoption took centre stage this week at Asia Tech x Enterprise (ATxE) 2026, part of Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) that is jointly organised by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Informa Festivals. Held at Singapore EXPO, the event saw over 120,000 business interactions and a 55% international exhibitor and speaker line-up across Southeast Asia, Greater China, Japan, Europe, and North America. This reinforces Singapore's role as a strategic gateway connecting global innovation with Asia's evolving digital economy.
ATxE 2026 reflected a broader market shift across the region. Enterprises have moved beyond experimentation with AI to integrating it into their long-term business strategy. With over 700 exhibitors across 35 pavilions, ATxE convened companies, sectors, and technologies scaling growth across AI, cloud, cybersecurity, satellite, media, and digital infrastructure.
Over 450 speakers — including policymakers and industry leaders — convened at ATxE 2026. In addition to global companies such as Microsoft and TikTok, the event featured representatives from Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs and ambassadors and trade leaders from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the European Union. Speakers addressed opportunities and challenges shaping Southeast Asia's digital future, from sovereign AI adoption to regional connectivity.
AI Adoption Expands Beyond the Technology Sector
A clear signal of this shift was the growing participation of traditionally non-tech industries in accelerating digital transformation efforts. Supply Chain, Logistics and Transport recorded a +500% increase in VIP enterprise buyers, followed by Healthcare and Pharma (+320%), Retail and FMCG (+80%), Manufacturing (+37%), and Banking and Finance (+32%).
This cross-sector demand reflects how AI adoption is becoming increasingly business-critical. Dealmaking was anchored by a highly senior audience, with 71% of attendees being manager-level or above. To support business outcomes and cross-border collaboration, the event facilitated networking initiatives through ATxConnect, Hosted Buyer Programme, and Startup Pitch Sessions.
Advancing Southeast Asia's AI and Digital Transformation Agenda
Discussions focused on the foundations needed to sustain long-term digital growth, including workforce readiness, cyber resilience, trusted digital ecosystems, and regional coordination.
In his opening address, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, Mr Tan Kiat How, highlighted Singapore's push to make AI practical and accessible for enterprises, particularly SMEs. Several initiatives were introduced to support enterprise AI adoption and cyber resilience. These included the launch of the AI for Enterprise Impact Playbook with insights from over 1,000 enterprises to guide local firms with existing digital capabilities on the next steps in AI adoption. Partnerships with Grab and RSM Stone Forest IT were forged to support the Digital Enterprise Blueprint, a national strategy that helps SMEs digitalise through support from established technology vendors. Mr Tan also announced the inaugural SME AI Impact Awards 2026 to encourage more SMEs to adopt AI.
"What stood out this year was the level of convergence happening across industries, markets, and leadership groups," said Joyce Wang, Event Director for ATxSG at Informa Festivals. "Conversations are no longer centred on whether AI adoption will happen, but how enterprises and governments can scale it responsibly, securely, and collaboratively across the region. ATxEnterprise has become a platform where these conversations translate into real partnerships, practical solutions, and measurable business outcomes."
ATxEnterprise will return to the Singapore EXPO from 26-28 May 2027.
About Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG)
ATxSG 2026 is Asia's leading technology event jointly organised by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Informa Festivals, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). The event consists of two main segments, ATxSummit and ATxEnterprise.
About Informa Festivals
Informa Festivals produces some of the world's most influential technology gatherings, including London Tech Week, Africa Tech Festival and Asia Tech x Singapore. These events bring together global leaders across enterprise, government, start-ups and investment to explore the technologies shaping the future of the digital economy. Informa Festivals is part of Informa PLC, a leading international B2B Live Events, B2B Digital Services and Academic Markets Group. For more information, please visit: https://www.informa.com/divisions/informa-festivals/
SINGAPORE, May 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Southeast Asia's transition from AI ambition to real-world enterprise adoption took centre stage this week at Asia Tech x Enterprise (ATxE) 2026, part of Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) that is jointly organised by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Informa Festivals. Held at Singapore EXPO, the event saw over 120,000 business interactions and a 55% international exhibitor and speaker line-up across Southeast Asia, Greater China, Japan, Europe, and North America. This reinforces Singapore's role as a strategic gateway connecting global innovation with Asia's evolving digital economy.
ATxE 2026 reflected a broader market shift across the region. Enterprises have moved beyond experimentation with AI to integrating it into their long-term business strategy. With over 700 exhibitors across 35 pavilions, ATxE convened companies, sectors, and technologies scaling growth across AI, cloud, cybersecurity, satellite, media, and digital infrastructure.
Over 450 speakers — including policymakers and industry leaders — convened at ATxE 2026. In addition to global companies such as Microsoft and TikTok, the event featured representatives from Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs and ambassadors and trade leaders from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the European Union. Speakers addressed opportunities and challenges shaping Southeast Asia's digital future, from sovereign AI adoption to regional connectivity.
AI Adoption Expands Beyond the Technology Sector
A clear signal of this shift was the growing participation of traditionally non-tech industries in accelerating digital transformation efforts. Supply Chain, Logistics and Transport recorded a +500% increase in VIP enterprise buyers, followed by Healthcare and Pharma (+320%), Retail and FMCG (+80%), Manufacturing (+37%), and Banking and Finance (+32%).
This cross-sector demand reflects how AI adoption is becoming increasingly business-critical. Dealmaking was anchored by a highly senior audience, with 71% of attendees being manager-level or above. To support business outcomes and cross-border collaboration, the event facilitated networking initiatives through ATxConnect, Hosted Buyer Programme, and Startup Pitch Sessions.
Advancing Southeast Asia's AI and Digital Transformation Agenda
Discussions focused on the foundations needed to sustain long-term digital growth, including workforce readiness, cyber resilience, trusted digital ecosystems, and regional coordination.
In his opening address, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, Mr Tan Kiat How, highlighted Singapore's push to make AI practical and accessible for enterprises, particularly SMEs. Several initiatives were introduced to support enterprise AI adoption and cyber resilience. These included the launch of the AI for Enterprise Impact Playbook with insights from over 1,000 enterprises to guide local firms with existing digital capabilities on the next steps in AI adoption. Partnerships with Grab and RSM Stone Forest IT were forged to support the Digital Enterprise Blueprint, a national strategy that helps SMEs digitalise through support from established technology vendors. Mr Tan also announced the inaugural SME AI Impact Awards 2026 to encourage more SMEs to adopt AI.
"What stood out this year was the level of convergence happening across industries, markets, and leadership groups," said Joyce Wang, Event Director for ATxSG at Informa Festivals. "Conversations are no longer centred on whether AI adoption will happen, but how enterprises and governments can scale it responsibly, securely, and collaboratively across the region. ATxEnterprise has become a platform where these conversations translate into real partnerships, practical solutions, and measurable business outcomes."
ATxEnterprise will return to the Singapore EXPO from 26-28 May 2027.
About Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG)
ATxSG 2026 is Asia's leading technology event jointly organised by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Informa Festivals, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). The event consists of two main segments, ATxSummit and ATxEnterprise.
About Informa Festivals
Informa Festivals produces some of the world's most influential technology gatherings, including London Tech Week, Africa Tech Festival and Asia Tech x Singapore. These events bring together global leaders across enterprise, government, start-ups and investment to explore the technologies shaping the future of the digital economy. Informa Festivals is part of Informa PLC, a leading international B2B Live Events, B2B Digital Services and Academic Markets Group. For more information, please visit: https://www.informa.com/divisions/informa-festivals/
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
ATxEnterprise 2026 Signals Southeast Asia's Shift from AI Experimentation to Enterprise Deployment
- The collaboration pairs McKinsey's transformation expertise, including QuantumBlack, with Opus, AppliedAI's Agentic Process Execution (APX) platform, to deploy governed, auditable workflows in regulated industries.
- A joint deployment with a leading European chemicals manufacturer cut a two-week vendor onboarding process to under five minutes of active processing, with a 99 percent-plus reduction in manual effort.
ABU DHABI, UAE and NEW YORK, May 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- AppliedAI and McKinsey & Company announced their collaboration to help regulated enterprises rewire mid- and back-office operations with agentic AI. The partnership combines McKinsey's end-to-end transformation capability, including the technical depth of QuantumBlack, with Opus, AppliedAI's Agentic Process Execution platform. The collaboration focuses on regulated industries and business process operations.
McKinsey research shows that 62 percent of organisations are experimenting with AI agents, but only 23 percent have scaled an agentic system inside their enterprise. The constraint is no longer model capability. It is execution: the ability to translate model capability into governed, auditable, production-grade workflows that hold up under regulatory scrutiny. This collaboration is built to close that gap, compressing the path from transformation strategy to operating workflow from months to weeks.
Opus enables organisations to discover, build, run, optimise, and govern agentic workflows, with a persistent enterprise memory layer that turns each deployment into compounding institutional intelligence. The platform is model-agnostic, orchestrates work across existing enterprise systems, and is designed for business stakeholders, not only technical teams, to own and evolve the workflows that run their operations, reflecting a broader shift toward putting AI capability in the hands of the people closest to the work.
The collaboration combines McKinsey's domain and change management expertise, and Quantum Black's technical depth with Opus' capabilities to help clients rapidly re-imagine and deploy agentic enterprise workflows. Under the collaboration, McKinsey leads the identification and reimagination of high-friction workflows, engaging business and technical stakeholders in new ways made possible through Opus, and embeds the governance and operating model changes required to run agentic systems at scale. AppliedAI provides the platform on which those reimagined workflows are built, deployed, and continuously improved. The combined offering is designed to accelerate time-to-value and lift the return on agentic process transformation.
"Our collaboration with AppliedAI addresses the need for an agentic solution for mid and back-office workflows. It also introduces new tools that support the enterprise AI roadmap, rapidly uncovers business requirements and re-imagines workflows that accelerate our AI efforts. This gives clients a governed, auditable path from transformation strategy to operational workflow in weeks not months," says Ben Ellencweig, Global Lead for QuantumBlack Partnerships and Alliances, McKinsey & Company.
Demonstrated impact
In a joint deployment with a leading European chemicals manufacturer operating under stringent regulatory requirements, McKinsey and AppliedAI used Opus to transform a vendor onboarding process that had been manual, slow, and error-prone, with data fragmented across systems and progress dependent on repeated follow-ups. By automating data capture, compliance checks, and counterparty communications, the joint effort delivered:
- A 99 percent-plus reduction in manual processing effort
- Cycle time compressed from approximately two weeks to under five minutes of active processing
- Materially improved data accuracy, compliance posture, and real-time process visibility
ABU DHABI, UAE and NEW YORK, May 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- AppliedAI and McKinsey & Company announced their collaboration to help regulated enterprises rewire mid- and back-office operations with agentic AI. The partnership combines McKinsey's end-to-end transformation capability, including the technical depth of QuantumBlack, with Opus, AppliedAI's Agentic Process Execution platform. The collaboration focuses on regulated industries and business process operations.
McKinsey research shows that 62 percent of organisations are experimenting with AI agents, but only 23 percent have scaled an agentic system inside their enterprise. The constraint is no longer model capability. It is execution: the ability to translate model capability into governed, auditable, production-grade workflows that hold up under regulatory scrutiny. This collaboration is built to close that gap, compressing the path from transformation strategy to operating workflow from months to weeks.
Opus enables organisations to discover, build, run, optimise, and govern agentic workflows, with a persistent enterprise memory layer that turns each deployment into compounding institutional intelligence. The platform is model-agnostic, orchestrates work across existing enterprise systems, and is designed for business stakeholders, not only technical teams, to own and evolve the workflows that run their operations, reflecting a broader shift toward putting AI capability in the hands of the people closest to the work.
The collaboration combines McKinsey's domain and change management expertise, and Quantum Black's technical depth with Opus' capabilities to help clients rapidly re-imagine and deploy agentic enterprise workflows. Under the collaboration, McKinsey leads the identification and reimagination of high-friction workflows, engaging business and technical stakeholders in new ways made possible through Opus, and embeds the governance and operating model changes required to run agentic systems at scale. AppliedAI provides the platform on which those reimagined workflows are built, deployed, and continuously improved. The combined offering is designed to accelerate time-to-value and lift the return on agentic process transformation.
"Our collaboration with AppliedAI addresses the need for an agentic solution for mid and back-office workflows. It also introduces new tools that support the enterprise AI roadmap, rapidly uncovers business requirements and re-imagines workflows that accelerate our AI efforts. This gives clients a governed, auditable path from transformation strategy to operational workflow in weeks not months," says Ben Ellencweig, Global Lead for QuantumBlack Partnerships and Alliances, McKinsey & Company.
Demonstrated impact
In a joint deployment with a leading European chemicals manufacturer operating under stringent regulatory requirements, McKinsey and AppliedAI used Opus to transform a vendor onboarding process that had been manual, slow, and error-prone, with data fragmented across systems and progress dependent on repeated follow-ups. By automating data capture, compliance checks, and counterparty communications, the joint effort delivered:
The collaboration is designed to repeat this pattern at scale across regulated industries: identify the workflows where friction is most expensive, reimagine them with the process owners who run them, and rapidly deploy governed agentic processes into production.
"Enterprises spend trillions globally on work that is necessary but procedural. We built Opus from first principles for the agentic enterprise, turning decades of process knowledge, trapped in documents, tribal memory, and legacy systems, into governed, production-ready workflows in minutes. Partnering with McKinsey is how we bring that reimagination to regulated industries at the scale they actually need, from financial services in New York and London to industrials in Frankfurt to sovereign-scale programmes in the Gulf."
— Arya Bolurfrushan, Founder and CEO, AppliedAI
"The AI transformations are often launched with a large ambition. But ambition without execution creates frustration, not value. This collaboration delivers what our clients are asking for: a way to rewire their operations with AI that is governed, auditable, fast. It brings AI to the P&L of the organisations."
— Abdellah Iftahy, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company; EEMA Business Building Practice Leader, Middle East
About AppliedAI
AppliedAI is the UAE's AI champion and a global enterprise AI company building Opus, the Agentic Process Execution (APX) platform that lets regulated enterprises discover, build, run, and optimise governed agentic workflows. Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, AppliedAI serves clients across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Learn more at opus.com.
About McKinsey & Company
McKinsey is a global management consulting firm committed to helping organizations accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth. We work with clients across the private, public, and social sectors to solve complex problems and create positive change for all their stakeholders. We combine bold strategies and transformative technologies to help organizations innovate more sustainably, achieve lasting gains in performance, and build workforces that will thrive for this generation and the next. Visit www.mckinsey.com for more.
McKinsey has a financial interest linked to the performance of AppliedAI. This press release is for informational purposes only and is not - and may not be relied on in any manner as - legal, tax, or investment advice or as an offer to sell or as solicitation of an offer to buy any interest in any member of the AppliedAI corporate group.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
AppliedAI and McKinsey & Company collaborate to rapidly rewire regulated enterprise processes with AI
