AI trust falls to 42% as ethical concerns go unresolved

69% of Singapore IT security leaders say they are not fully confident in the accuracy or explainability of their AI outputs.

Trust in how businesses use AI is falling fast in Singapore, with only 42% of consumers saying they trust companies to use AI ethically, a steep drop from 58% in 2023, according to Salesforce’s latest State of IT: Security Report.

Whilst 100% of IT security leaders in Singapore believe AI agents can improve at least one security concern, many admit their internal readiness doesn’t match their ambitions.

According to the report, which surveyed 2,000 global IT leaders, including 50 from Singapore, 69% of Singapore IT security leaders say they are not fully confident in the accuracy of their AI outputs.

More than half (57%) do not provide full transparency into how AI systems use customer data, and 69% have yet to perfect ethical guidelines for AI deployment.

Despite these gaps, AI adoption continues to rise. Currently, 38% of Singapore IT teams use AI agents, a figure projected to increase to 64% within two years.

However, foundational issues remain: 46% of leaders are concerned their data infrastructure is not set up to fully support agentic AI, and 56% are not confident they have appropriate guardrails in place.

Budget responses are strong, with 78% of Singapore organisations planning to increase security spending this year.

Yet compliance remains a stumbling block: only 46% are fully confident in their ability to deploy AI in line with regulations, and 88% say their compliance processes are not fully automated.