Tuesday, April 21, 2026
The Singtel Group has announced a strategic partnership with Sierra, a leading conversational AI platform, to transform how the company engages with customers across its services. Through this collaboration, Singtel aims to deliver faster, more personalized, and highly efficient customer experiences while continuing to enhance the value it offers to its users.
The partnership began with a pilot program launched in late January within Singtel Singapore’s customer care ecosystem. As part of the initiative, Singtel upgraded its AI-powered assistant, “Shirley,” by incorporating more advanced conversational capabilities. These improvements allow customers to resolve inquiries independently and complete service transactions more smoothly through digital channels.
Notably, Shirley has been designed to understand local communication styles, including Singlish and other local expressions, enabling more natural and relatable conversations for customers in Singapore. In addition, Singtel plans to expand Shirley’s language capabilities in the future to better serve diverse communities across the region.
Mr Ng Tian Chong, Chief Executive Officer, Singtel Singapore, highlighted the company’s customer-first approach and the role of AI in delivering better service experiences.
“Putting our customers first has always been at the heart of what we do. The deployment of agentic AI across chat and voice is about delivering real value — more personalised experiences, greater convenience and faster, more responsive service. By using AI to support our customer service teams, we can ensure customers are promptly and well assisted, while empowering our agents to focus on more complex cases where human expertise matters most. Our AI agents are designed to understand local expressions and even Singlish, reflecting our roots as a homegrown company serving a diverse nation. This marks an important step in redefining how we build and sustain customer relationships in the AI era.”
Beyond chat-based support, Singtel Singapore also plans to introduce voice-based AI agents capable of making outbound sales calls to customers. These AI-driven calls will assist with sales transactions while operating within strict compliance and governance guidelines. Over time, Singtel intends to extend these AI capabilities across additional departments and even offer similar solutions to enterprise clients for use within their own businesses.
Bret Taylor, CEO and Co-Founder of Sierra, also emphasized the significance of the collaboration.
“We founded Sierra in the belief that AI can create better, more human customer experiences. Our partnership with Singtel — Asia’s leading communications technology group — is helping make that a reality, deepening their relationship with customers, while also growing their business. Singtel is a pioneer in applied AI and we’re so excited to be working with them.”
Sierra’s agentic AI technology plays a central role in enabling customers to handle routine service requests independently. The system verifies customer information, delivers relevant service details, and assists with tasks through Singtel’s virtual support platforms, including Shirley. Importantly, these interactions remain secure and accurate while maintaining human oversight when needed.
Singtel implemented the system in less than ten weeks, demonstrating rapid deployment capabilities. During the first six weeks after launch, Shirley handled more than 70,000 customer cases, addressing common requests such as mobile service issues and roaming inquiries.
Early results show strong performance. Approximately 73% of mobile and home troubleshooting cases were resolved without assistance from customer care agents. Additionally, 76% of roaming sign-up requests were completed successfully through the AI assistant. Customers also independently purchased more than 200 roaming add-ons through the platform.
These results indicate that AI-driven support can significantly reduce manual workloads for customer service teams. Consequently, customer care officers can dedicate more time to complex inquiries that require human expertise. At the same time, customers benefit from faster response times and more convenient service interactions.
Singtel continues to position itself as a leader in AI-driven innovation. The company views its role across three key areas: Adopter, Provider, and Enabler of AI.
As an adopter, Singtel applies AI across its business units to improve operational efficiency and customer experience. As a provider, the company develops and commercializes AI solutions that benefit both internal operations and external customers. Finally, as an enabler, Singtel supplies the connectivity infrastructure and platforms required for large-scale AI adoption.
Through its partnership with Sierra, Singtel moves closer to its vision of becoming the world’s most intelligent connectivity company, delivering smarter services and stronger customer relationships in the AI era.
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