Deploying digital assistants to simplify high-friction workflows

When people hit a frustrating task — screening a stack of documents, chasing an answer that lives in five places, finding the right course, reuniting a lost item with its owner — they are not thinking about “AI.” They just want the friction gone.

This session opens with the rationale behind Singapore Management University (SMU)’s approach: why we started with high-friction, everyday workflows, how they were identified, and what it takes to turn deployment into genuine adoption.

From there, we bring the ideas to life with demos and screenshots — each assistant shown doing the job it was built for, embedded directly into the flow of work and governed for trust. We’ll close with a look at what’s coming next through SMU AI Studio.

In this session you’ll learn:

• why anchoring AI in real, high-friction work (not technology possibilities) is the fastest route to adoption
• how a lean, cross-functional team delivered a modular portfolio rather than one monolithic platform
• the design choices — prompt-driven flexibility, embedding into existing tools, clear scope and governance — that built trust and drove genuine use
• how capability building and AI literacy turned deployment into sustained adoption

Participants will leave with a practical, repeatable approach to identifying high-friction workflows and deploying focused digital assistants that people actually adopt — and a sense of where this is heading next.

Wee Sen GOH is Deputy Director (Automation, Web Experience and AI) at Singapore Management University, where he leads the university’s efforts in intelligent automation, web experience and AI. Working with a multidisciplinary team, he helps turn emerging technologies into practical solutions that improve how people work and interact with digital services.

Passionate about digital innovation, Wee Sen enjoys bridging strategy with hands-on delivery. His work focuses on creating digital experiences that are intuitive, accessible and future-ready, while ensuring technology investments deliver meaningful outcomes for staff and the wider university community.

A strong advocate for responsible AI adoption and continuous improvement, Wee Sen enjoys working across business and technical teams to experiment with new ideas, solve complex challenges and build capabilities that support the university’s long-term digital transformation.