Agnes AI, a Singapore-born collaboration platform powered by artificial intelligence, has crossed 2 million registered users globally since its launch in July. The platform now records 150,000 daily active users, with about half based in Southeast Asia, underscoring its rapid growth and regional appeal.
Building an AI-native workspace for collaboration
Founded by Bruce Yang, a Raffles Institution alumnus and AI PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Agnes AI combines research, content creation, design, and teamwork into a single workspace. The platform enables users to transition seamlessly from AI-assisted research to producing slides and documents, while collaborative workspaces allow teams to edit, annotate, and refine their work together. Early adopters have praised the platform for its speed, usability, and productivity gains.
“Agnes allows teams to focus on creativity and impact rather than switching between multiple apps,” said a beta user. “The speed and quality of complex tasks like slide generation, combined with collaborative tools, have improved our workflow several-fold.”
Singapore-built model driving innovation
At the core of the platform is Agnes-R1, a proprietary 7-billion-parameter model developed entirely in Singapore by a team comprising researchers from NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and top global institutions such as MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. The model has achieved leading performance in real-world applications, outperforming comparable systems in complex reasoning tasks while maintaining efficiency and stability.
Unlike many AI startups that depend on open-source models from abroad, Agnes has built its architecture from scratch. This approach enables the team to control every stage of model development, training, and deployment. The company plans to train its next-generation model locally, using user-generated data, Singaporean AI expertise, and strategic GPU partnerships. This commitment reflects Agnes AI’s ambition to build technology rooted in local talent but competitive on the global stage.
A founder’s journey and future ambitions
Bruce’s journey reflects Singapore’s maturing AI ecosystem. After completing dual degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science at UC Berkeley, he worked at Microsoft and LinkedIn before co-founding a Silicon Valley startup that achieved millions of downloads. Returning to Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue his PhD, he quickly formed a team of leading researchers to create Agnes AI.
“Our mission is to build AI that originates in Singapore, serves Southeast Asia, and competes on the global stage,” said Bruce. “We want to show that high-calibre AI solutions can be developed locally, leveraging Singapore’s talent and infrastructure, and deliver tangible value to users worldwide.”
Beyond Agnes-R1, the company has expanded into research areas such as multi-agent AI systems, token-efficient collaboration frameworks, and agentic workspaces that support productivity and marketing content creation. These innovations demonstrate the platform’s dual commitment to practical applications and academic research.
Scaling up for the next phase of growth
Following its strong user growth and research milestones, Agnes AI is now working with NUS and NTU to scale its next-generation model locally. The company is also finalising a multi-million-dollar funding round to support further model expansion and international outreach.
Agnes AI’s success represents a milestone for Singapore’s AI landscape, highlighting the nation’s potential to produce globally competitive, research-driven AI platforms that combine innovation, collaboration, and local expertise.
