AI that’s not slop

We look at two areas where AI is not only boosting productivity but also saving lives.

Read from your browser Sunday Newsletter Welcome to Tech in Asia's Sunday newsletter, your weekend brief on the biggest moves in Asia's tech and startup world. Subscribe to this newsletter or send story tips to editors@techinasia.com. Ensure our articles appear in your Google searches: IN FOCUS Terence Lee on how AI is actually improving lives The challenges of getting doctors to adopt AI scribes How AI is helping truck drivers stay out of trouble Hello Betamax, It's hard to go to work without encountering AI slop. Whether that's a canned LinkedIn post, email, or internal presentation, AI has pervaded the workplace, often for worse. Recently though, I'm reminded of the good that AI can do. For instance, my colleague Glenn Kaonang broke down how AI scribes are entering clinics and the challenges of integrating them into physicians' workflows. We should hope that this tech matures and doctors everywhere can use it to reduce their workload. As the popular medical drama The Pitt illustrates, doctor burnout is real. We are right to worry about how AI is taking away jobs. But let's also focus on how it can address the lack of medical access and assistance in communities that need them. Terence Lee, editor-in-chief EDITOR'S PICKS 1️⃣ Fixing doctor burnout with AI is harder than it looks in SEA Some founders say AI scribes need to be integrated with electronic medical records to take off. But others disagree. 2️⃣ Bad road habits meet their AI reckoning Here's another domain where AI is saving lives: logistics. In particular, a company in India is helping truck drivers avoid accidents by spotting their bad habits. Until, of course, autonomous vehicles make these drivers redundant. SHORT CUTS 1️⃣ China's Moonshot AI raises $2b at $20b valuation China's frontier AI companies are growing in maturity and taking the spotlight. Here's a quick way to understand these players, according to a Chinese AI insider I spoke with: Zhipu and Moonshot AI are like Claude with their coding and enterprise focus. MiniMax specializes in multimodal models, while DeepSeek has been consumer-centric - not worrying about making money until recently. All of them are around three to four months behind the leading Western models, but that's deliberate. They achieve good performance with low cost through distillation, which is the process of training a smaller, more efficient model by mimicking a larger one. 2️⃣ Indonesia detains KoinWorks executives in $35m case The fallout in Indonesia's startup scene - caused by a lack of quality founders - continues. Foreign founders, ironically, may drive the recovery. Kitar, a startup that resells phones, has raised US$10 million from Chinese VCs. It was established by Frank Zhou, an ex-Shopee executive. Perhaps Zhou can do a repeat of J&T Express, a Chinese startup that first took off in Indonesia. 3️⃣ SG's PDG secures $856m for Indonesia data center expansion Indonesia is having a data center boom. A day before this news broke, Jakarta-based DCI signed a US$969 million loan with Bank Central Asia for data center construction. Our reporter, Jofie Yordan, also looked at how investors are pouring money into data centers in Batam, an Indonesian island near Singapore. ONE VISUAL STORY YOU SHOULDN'T MISS Grab's financial health in 8 charts Southeast Asia's leading ride-hailing and food delivery firm is having its moment. With surging revenues and seven consecutive quarters of profit, it's now dipping its toes outside the region Asia through its Foodpanda Taiwan buyout. Its share price, however, remains stuck in the doldrums. SINGAPORE'S TOP AI CONFERENCE IS HERE Moving from ideation to deployment We've all seen the visionary keynotes and run the small-scale AI pilots, but for most enterprises across Asia, the majority of AI initiatives are still dying in the sandbox. In 2026, the winners and losers in AI won't be determined by who has the best ideas, but by who can turn them into production at scale. Tech in Asia Conference returns to Singapore this September, and it aims to bridge the execution gap between startups and enterprises. We've redesigned the conference experience to optimize for high-stakes networking and real-world learning. Ticket sales are now open. Get your early bird tickets here. EVENTS HAPPENING You can also check out our curated list of trending tech events and Tech in Asia's signature events. AI is scaling. But is it delivering results? At Asia Economic Summit 2026 on June 17, the main stage session "Enterprises lookout: What happens after AI implementation" shifts the focus to this next phase. It examines what separates deployment from real performance and looks at where operating models evolve and AI is expected to deliver measurable impact under real business conditions. Join the leaders defining the next decade of digital growth and get your regular release tickets at 50% off (US$288) today. Explore the full agenda. Singapore's top AI conference is here Tech in Asia Conference returns to Singapore this September, and it aims to bridge the execution gap between startups and enterprises. We've redesigned the conference experience to optimize for high-stakes networking and real-world learning. Ticket sales are now open.Get your early bird tickets here. ADVERTISE | SUBSCRIBE | HIRE | FIND JOBS P.S. 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