Jillian Wood, Chief of Staff, Asia Pacific, ServiceNow, Singapore

1. How do you use technology/policy to improve citizens’ lives? Tell us about your role or organisation. 

The founder of ServiceNow, Fred Luddy, started the company after discovering a passion for solving people’s work issues with digital solutions.

He often tells the story of how he wrote code to automate a repetitive manual task of a co-worker Phyllis. Phyllis was so happy about Fred’s solve; she cried tears of joy. It changed Fred’s life and set him on a path to have an even bigger impact on more people.

Our drive to solve people’s work problems, ultimately helps their lives and is inspirational for all of us at ServiceNow.

As Chief of Staff for the ServiceNow APAC President, I not only run the President’s office, but I have the privilege of working closely with our customers.

That includes partnerships with government agencies, where I’ve experienced a first-hand view of where technology makes Singaporeans’ lives simpler, smoother, and more secure.

One example that comes to mind is SingPass, which ticks all three boxes. SingPass has made accessing government and other services so much simpler than in many countries: all you need is one logon instead of having to remember numerous passwords.

It’s smoothed out many of the frictions usually associated with digital services thanks to constant improvements to UX and accessibility – QR scanning through the app comes to mind.

And it ends up being more secure for Singaporeans too, by allowing you to only share the information the service requires to authenticate you, rather than your entire profile every single time.

I’m also pleased to see the government exploring how we could have just one place to go for all our critical moments of life – from birth and education to national service, marriage, owning your own home, etc.

Public servants are also getting the corporate services they need for a better work experience, which in turn translates into better quality of service for citizens in these various areas – as well as helping draw top talent to the public sector.

This sort of positive feedback loop ultimately benefits the entire country, and the government’s focus on continual improvement really resonates with how we at ServiceNow approach problems.

We know we need to constantly find new ways to improve as opportunities and challenges change.

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2. What was the most impactful project you worked on this year? 

Together with our Singapore team, we’ve been reviewing how we can deliver the most impactful and frictionless service to government, including exploring with GovTech how to empower the government with products, services, cybersecurity, and governance that move us towards the Smart Nation vision.

We recently hosted Goh Wei Boon at one of our events and I was struck by the depth of his, and his team’s, vision for better serving all Singaporeans through technology.

We’re only just getting started and I’m looking forward to what’s next in this partnership, I think there’s a great opportunity for us to co-create for pan-agency efficiencies that drives success in innovating for impact while providing better public servant (employee) and citizen experience.

Another great opportunity has been our collaboration with Economic Development Board, where we’ve showcased how we fit into Singapore’s technology ecosystem. Recognizing that Singapore is striving to be the world’s most AI-powered economy, we want to help as part of the launchpad into the AI evolution, scaling AI opportunities for Singapore.

Together with EDB, ServiceNow can support Singapore’s private sector to accelerate digitalisation and the use of AI to improve the lives of all citizens, residents and visitors to Singapore.  

Together we’ve focused on large corporates as the proof and showcases for supporting smaller enterprises, together we can make the technology more accessible and therefore build more skills and adoption across the country.

In early 2025, we’ll be launching the ServiceNow Protected Platform (SPP) to accelerate the delivery of government services with AI capabilities like Now Assist.

Public sector agencies and other regulated industries can use the SPP to implement their own purpose-built AI solutions, again making the technology more accessible with the focus for agencies just being determining the right use cases.

3. What was one unexpected learning from 2024? 

Something that touched me deeply was the growing realization in our industry that we need humans together with technology to create a truly meaningful experience.

The notion that people and technology are opposed to one another is being increasingly debunked: if you want the greatest efficiency or revenue gains, you need the two to work together in harmony.

Ultimately, it’s human skills and traits like empathy that matter. Singapore’s consistent focus on re-skilling, adapting to change, and embracing the unknown is even more important as a result.

We’re grateful for the opportunity to support this through skilling initiatives like our collaboration with NTUC Learning Hub, as well as the partnership with Republic Polytechnic announced earlier this year, where we’re helping provide hundreds of early career and lifelong learners access to emerging AI and cloud computing opportunities, both in terms of skills development and actual roles.

4. What’s a tool or technique you’re excited to explore in 2025? 

I’m keen to explore generative AI beyond its summarisation capabilities.

I want to start pushing it beyond just productivity gains and into activities that really add revenue or market share.

For example, one of the most popular use cases for ServiceNow’s Now Assist generative AI solutions has been in accelerating and streamlining customer service. Some customers in other markets have seen their customer service agents become as much as 55% more productive after implementing Now Assist in their workflows.

This has huge implications for Singapore, where ServiceNow’s research found that the population is spending approximately 30 million hours on hold – costing the economy some $1.24 billion – every year due to poor service.

The public sector has not been immune here either: the average citizen spends nearly 2 hours a year trying to resolve issues with government, which is longer than with almost any other type of service provider.

So far, most of the GenAI use cases we’ve seen in Asia have been relatively safe, even cautious. But I believe that next year we’ll hit an inflection point between curiosity and confidence around AI.

I’m excited to help organizations explore how to scale much further and at far faster speed with this technology for fairer and faster decision-making, more personalised experiences and smoother automation behind the scenes.

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5. Everybody’s talking about AI today – give us your hot take on AI and what it means for the public sector.

Less of the mundane, more of the meaningful! We’re still seeing a lot of organisations using AI to make existing processes or tasks run more efficiently.

However, more are starting to consider how AI allows them to create entirely new processes and even business models that completely transform what they offer to customers, employees, or citizens. The faster we shift our our focus from “doing things better” to “doing better things”, the more positive impact we’ll see.

My hot take for the public sector is that risk shouldn’t be an excuse for inaction on AI anymore.

As I mentioned before – there’s huge opportunity for government to improve customer service and meet rising expectations efficiently with AI, we’re seeing this already come to life with field service automation following PM Wong’s mention of the 9 month timeframe it took for approval of a factory conversion to a dormitory, we know we can help to improve this!

Our research suggests this is also in line with what citizen themselves want: 90% of citizens feel the public sector should invest more in technology to improve hold and resolution times.

However, agencies still tend to hold back due to concerns about security and data governance.

This is why, as I mentioned, in early 2025, we’ll be launching the ServiceNow Protected Platform for public sector agencies and other regulated industries, they can use the SPP to implement their own purpose-built AI solutions that enhance citizen services, while retaining full oversight of where data goes, who can access it, and how it’s used by AI systems that are both secure and sovereign.

By leveraging AI in a responsible way, the public sector can improve life for citizens more efficiently, inclusively and innovatively.

The technology for doing so is already at hand. And there is so much more to come in the way of governance, public safety, education, and infrastructure.

When AI is used well and has guardrails for bias, privacy, inclusiveness and transparency, its ability to predict, analyse and suggest action is unmatched.

6. What are your priorities for 2025? 

I have three priorities for 2025. First, I’ll be focusing on proving the value of AI in ways that help organizations, including both government and enterprise, deploy it to optimal effect at scale.

This is a priority because a lot of organisations in Singapore and Asia more broadly are struggling to turn AI’s potential into actual performance.

For example – this year, our Enterprise AI Maturity Index found that only 18% of Singaporean enterprises felt they have achieved significant productivity improvements with AI so far. And 13% saw their pace of innovation slow down due to AI adoption – instead of speeding up like it ought to.

A big part of my work next year will be helping organisations negotiate their different layers of change management and technology implementation so that they can put AI to work with the desired results.

This includes various dimensions from sustainability – like meeting Singapore’s 2030 datacenter energy usage targets – to safety and ethics.

We need to get proactive about these changes if we want to keep Singapore a leader in digital, industry, governance, and the intersection of all three.

This also ties into my second priority: making AI work for people. If you want AI adoption to deliver value at scale, you need to make sure it’s human-centric – delivering an improved experience for everyone whether customers, employees, or partners.

That starts with a deep understanding of organizational process and data, which is something ServiceNow has been cultivating since the very start.

As mentioned earlier, I’m looking forward to guiding conversations and commitments around the intersection between AI and customer experience in Asia – making sure technology adoption leads to improved human outcomes rather than compounding existing weaknesses.

Finally, I’ll be paying close attention to how we work with government, academia, and other enterprises on skills development – in particular, ensuring learners are matched with roles that allow them to exercise their new skills.

In Singapore, we’ve seen huge interest in the community for learning AI skills, but we also need to create opportunities for such skills to be applied at work in responsible and innovative ways.

Helping enterprises and leaders gain greater maturity with AI will undoubtedly be a big part of this.

7. What advice do you have for public sector innovators? 

Don’t stop creating! It may seem like an uphill battle at times, but we’ve seen time and again in Singapore how incremental innovation can yield transformative results – just like in the SingPass example.

I’d encourage public sector innovators to partner with the private sector as much as possible. Don’t let the AI train pass you by, it’s not a passing fad, it’s here to stay, so jump on!

Doing so creates far greater possibilities for impact, especially in terms of generating economic opportunity for citizens, than working in isolation.

It also provides invaluable exposure to different ways of looking at things that may not be available within civil service alone. We both have a lot to learn from one another and when we do, the entire nation benefits.

Finally, don’t lose focus of the human outcomes for innovation. By operationalising AI, for example, we can get substantial productivity gains – but for what?

Ideally, for public servants to spend more time on the most impactful work – like attending to our most vulnerable citizens, navigating the most complex issues, or investing in the most important relationships with their loved ones.

8. Who inspires you today? 

We just had our Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott visit us in Sydney and Singapore, so he’s top of mind for me.

Bill is always exuberant about empowering others (both inside and outside the business) to grow with the changing environment and the opportunities this presents.

He also has a long-term focus on creating a legacy of positive change and meaningful contributions in all his interactions.

When you have a leader that so innately connects with people and is truly humble while also committing to growth, there’s a level of trust that is maintained and built on with every exchange.

I love seeing the impact he has on people!