HR leaders across Asia Pacific face a widening gap between AI deployment and AI success. The region leads the world in rolling out AI agents, but it also leads in failure: 83% of APAC enterprises have had to roll back a live AI agent, according to recent research.
The problem, according to Kristie Healey, SVP of Human Resources for APAC & Global Talent Acquisition at Sinch, is not the technology itself. It is the absence of investment in the human elements that make AI work: culture, trust, and capability.
The investment imbalance
Deloitte research cited by Healey found that 93% of enterprise AI budgets go to technology, while just 7% is allocated to culture and change management. She describes this as a fundamental misstep that creates an enablement gap where friction builds quickly.
The numbers support her view. A separate report found that 74% of organisations that reached production still had to shut down or roll back an agent. Healey attributes this to what she calls an "enablement illusion" - giving employees access to AI tools without the capability to use them well.
The pressure to spend is also lopsided. An IDC InfoBrief commissioned by Expereo found that 37% of APAC organisations admit they are investing aggressively in AI with little evaluation, nearly double the global average of 20%, driven by fear of falling behind. Yet only 40% of APAC implementations have exceeded expectations.
Trust starts with frontline managers
Healey argues that board mandates matter, but the real work happens closer to the ground. "Trust is built on the ground," she said. Frontline managers are the ones who either create psychological safety or undermine it.
At Sinch, this means investing in leadership commitments and manager development programmes that emphasise visionary, trust-based leadership. The goal is to give employees permission to question automated outputs and to understand that human oversight is the most critical part of any AI process.
Without that guidance, Healey warns, "failing to formally guide and support the use and adoption of AI will lead to the rise of shadow AI." The risk is real: ADP research shows only 18% of employees in APAC feel their jobs are safe from elimination, the lowest share of any region.
Aon's inaugural Human Capital Trends Study for APAC reinforces the urgency. While 74% of organisations in the region have deployed or piloted AI programmes, only 21% believe they can effectively recruit and retain sufficient AI talent, and a quarter expect some job displacement as adoption evolves.
The human-in-the-loop guardrail
Sinch's approach is straightforward: keep a human in the loop. "AI does the heavy lifting, but it's important that we always retain a human in the loop approach," Healey said. Human judgment remains the final filter and the ultimate decision maker.
This is not just an internal preference. Sinch's own research shows that organisations can ship advanced technology to customers and still break trust if the human element disappears. The leading causes of AI rollbacks globally are PII or customer data exposure (31%) and hallucination or brand risk (22%), both of which require human governance to catch before damage spreads.
In APAC, the cost of failure is often immediate. Nearly half of enterprises, 45%, cite support team overload as the primary impact of an AI failure.
Human skills become the competitive advantage
As routine analysis gets automated, the value of judgment, storytelling, and empathy rises. Healey said Sinch is evolving its hiring, onboarding, and leadership development to ensure employees can partner with and govern AI effectively.
Sinch's core leadership competencies now focus on visionary leadership, trust-based leadership, empowerment in problem-solving, empathy, and change management. In hiring, the premium is on critical thinking, curiosity, and judgment. "As routine tasks become more automated, you need human skills like storytelling... human relationship building and empathy really do become really important, and also our greatest competitive advantage as well," Healey said.
The shift is especially sharp for younger workers. The World Economic Forum's 2026 report found that three in four young workers in Eastern Asia are employed in occupations with medium to high exposure to AI-driven task change, the highest rate globally. Aon's APAC study adds that adaptability and change management are now cited as the most critical workforce skills required over the next three years.
For HR professionals building these capabilities, AI for Human Resources offers practical guidance on recruitment, talent management, and workforce analytics. Senior HR executives looking for a structured approach can explore an AI Learning Path for CHROs focused on strategic workforce decisions.
What HR leaders should do in 2027
Healey's advice is direct: shift focus from providing tools to enabling people. "It's not about giving people the tools, it's really about understanding the maturity level of your organization and getting them a really great understanding of how to use those tools in the best way," she said.
She also advocates for HR leading by example. At Sinch, this meant rolling out a multi-week, hands-on global Gen AI programme for the HR group before asking anyone else in the business to change. "Our people feel more empowered, and as HR, we need to show up commercially to the business," Healey said.
Why this matters for HR leaders
The organisations that will thrive with AI are not the ones with the biggest technology budget. They are the ones investing in manager capability, psychological safety, and the human judgment that catches AI errors before they reach customers or employees. For HR leaders, the mandate is clear: own the culture work, not just the tool rollout. The 7% of budget currently going to change management is where most of the risk - and most of the return - actually sits.
Your membership also unlocks:
