SMEs Go Digital 2026: Free AI Trials as Adoption Hits 23.4%

At SMEs Go Digital Day on 13 October 2026, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced three new partner programmes that give Singapore SMEs free AI trials: six months of a document-organising tool from Singtel Stack-EZ, a two-month AI agent trial of Slack from Salesforce, and 60-day trials of retail, wholesale and food and beverage AI tools through Beyondsoft. IMDA's announcement also added a curated list of more than 100 global AI tools on the SMEs Go Digital platform. The timing follows IMDA's Singapore Digital Economy Report 2026, which found AI adoption among SMEs rose from 14.5% in 2024 to 23.4% in 2025.

A free trial still costs staff time, data handling and, at the end, a subscription decision. This guide compares the three programmes, pulls out what the adoption figures say about how small firms use AI, and works through whether a trial is worth starting.

Which free AI trial fits your business?

Each programme tackles a different stage, as IMDA describes them:

• If your records are a mess: Stack-EZ. IMDA says the first barrier for many SMEs is scattered data, with invoices, contracts, receipts and HR records spread across email, shared drives and paper. Space automatically classifies and organises documents, and IMDA says it will add extraction of the data inside them for accounting, customer relationship management and procurement systems "in the upcoming months". Six months free for up to five users with 200GB of storage, with onboarding and workshops; Singtel's release (Annex C, PDF) then prices it at S$29.90 a month with no minimum subscription period. To qualify, a business must be registered and incorporated in Singapore, have at least 30% local shareholding and have annual turnover of no more than S$100 million or fewer than 200 employees.
• If you want to automate a team workflow: Slack AI Launchpad. A 60-day trial of Slack Business+ with AI agents for up to 10 users, two structured workshops to pick use cases (both must be completed), and support to build at least one AI-enabled workflow for a real business need. Salesforce's release says sign-ups opened on IMDA's SMEs Go Digital platform on 13 October 2026. Best for teams already coordinating work in chat.
• If you run a shop, distributor or outlet: Tech Bridge. A curated set of AI solutions "with established real-world traction" for sales management, store operations, customer engagement, retail analytics and market intelligence, shown at regular showcase events, with a 60-day trial and guided onboarding. IMDA's fact sheet (Annex B, PDF) lists five starting solutions, which it describes as proven in the China market and localised with English interfaces and Singapore data residency. The first showcase is on 5 November 2026, where SMEs can sign up for a trial on the spot; Beyondsoft says trial inclusions, eligibility and post-trial terms are confirmed with each SME before activation.

What the announcement leaves open matters as much. Only Stack-EZ has published a price for after the trial; the releases give none for Slack Business+, and Beyondsoft settles its terms with each SME. Data handling is described only in outline: Singtel lists encryption, multi-factor authentication and malware scanning, and Beyondsoft cites Singapore data residency. Get the price, contract term and data terms in writing before you upload anything.

Separately, the curated list of more than 100 global AI tools (IMDA names Canva, DeepSeek, Lovable and Notion as examples) is distinct from IMDA's pre-approved solutions, and IMDA notes many offer free tiers, trials or credits. A new Pre-approved Solutions Package Builder lets SMEs customise packages, add-ons and training. The release does not say what grant support now applies to pre-approved solutions; our guide to the EDGE Grant explains how to scope a project before applying for business grant support.

What do the adoption figures say about small firms?

The Digital Economy Report's findings, which cover all AI-adopting enterprises (SMEs and large local firms) and workers rather than SMEs alone, point to modest, practical use rather than custom builds:

• Close to nine in ten AI-adopting enterprises use commercial off-the-shelf tools; 28.3% customise them.
• Two in five adopters are expanding deployment or have integrated AI across the business.
• Among non-adopters, the share planning to adopt in the next 12 months more than doubled, from 5.6% in 2023 to 12.1% in 2025.
• 86% of workers use AI at work in 2026, but only 37% attended AI training in the past year, though about 68% see a need. Around 35% of those who did not train said their employer had not nominated them.

That last figure is the cheapest fix on this page. If staff are already using AI tools, nominating them for training is a decision you control. IMDA's National AI Impact Programme factsheet, issued on 2 March 2026, sets the wider target: support for 10,000 enterprises over three years and for 100,000 workers to become "AI bilingual", applying AI in their own field.

Worked example: is a two-month trial worth it? (illustrative)

Farah runs a fictional eight-person events company and is considering the Slack trial to automate how enquiries become task lists. Her admin executive earns S$3,200 a month.

1. Value of an hour. MOM's hourly basic rate formula is (12 × monthly basic) ÷ (52 × 44): 38,400 ÷ 2,288 = S$16.78.
2. Time saved. If the workflow saves the executive four hours a week, that is about S$67 of paid time a week. IMDA's survey found that, among workers who reported time savings, about six in ten saved up to an hour a day, so four hours a week is a reasonable test target rather than a promise.
3. Over the trial. The trial lasts 60 days, about 8.6 weeks: roughly 34 hours, worth about S$575.
4. Setup cost. Two workshops plus building and testing one workflow might take Farah and the executive 12 hours between them (our assumption). At four hours a week, it takes three weeks of savings just to recover that time, so the saving needs to show up early in the trial.
5. The decision after the trial. Four hours a week is about 17.3 hours a month (4 × 52 ÷ 12), worth about S$291. If the post-trial subscription and admin cost more than that each month, the workflow is not paying its way at this level of use.

Our free time savings calculator runs the same sums for your own task and rates.

Checklist before you sign up for a trial

1. Name one process and one owner. A trial with no target becomes shelfware.
2. Time that process for two weeks before the trial starts, so you can compare.
3. Ask for the post-trial price, contract term and how to cancel, in writing.
4. Check what data you will upload, where it is stored and who can see it, especially HR records and customer details.
5. Diary the trial end date and a decision meeting a week before it.
6. Decide in advance what result would make you pay, using the break-even sum above.
7. Nominate the staff who will use the tool for training.

Our guides to scoping a small AI pilot and choosing a first AI workflow that survives a bad answer help with steps 1 and 6. Because the Slack trial involves AI agents that take actions, our guide to testing an AI agent before it goes live is worth reading too. More on working time is under productivity.

Common questions