Agnes AI has announced that they have recorded over 2 million registered users worldwide with around 150,000 daily active users, with about half coming from Southeast Asia, showing its growing presence and appeal in the region.
The platform was founded by Bruce Yang, who studied at Raffles Institution and is currently a PhD student in AI at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Agnes AI combines research, content creation, design, and teamwork into one easy-to-use workspace. Users can smoothly transition from AI research to creating slides and content. Shared workspaces let teams edit, annotate, and improve their work together. Early users have noted its speed, simplicity, and ability to boost productivity.
“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.” At the heart of Agnes AI is its proprietary 7-billion-parameter model, Agnes-R1, developed entirely in Singapore by a team drawn from NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and international institutions including MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. Agnes-R1 has achieved state-of-the-art performance in real-world commercial applications, outperforming comparable systems on complex multi-hop reasoning benchmarks while maintaining stable and efficient training.
Unlike many AI platforms that use foreign models, Agnes has created its technology from the ground up. This local approach gives the team full control over how their models are developed, trained, and used. The next-generation model will be trained with user data, local Singaporean AI experts, and important GPU partners, showing the company’s focus on creating AI that is connected to its local roots but also ready to compete globally.
Bruce’s story highlights Singapore’s growing AI talent scene. After finishing his studies early with degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, Bruce worked at Microsoft and LinkedIn before helping to start a Silicon Valley company that got millions of downloads. When he returned to Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue a PhD in AI at NUS, he quickly gathered a team of top local and international 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-caliber AI solutions can be developed locally, leveraging Singapore’s talent and infrastructure, and deliver tangible value to users worldwide.”
The team has developed the Agnes-R1 model and researched multi-agent AI systems, such as ways to improve collaboration, productivity tools, and AI-generated marketing content. These advancements link academic research with real-world applications, showing the platform’s focus on both productivity and AI development.
Next Steps: Scaling Locally and Globally
Building on its fast user growth and research advancements, Agnes AI is getting ready to expand its next-generation model with NUS and NTU nearby. The company is also finalizing a multi-million-dollar funding round to help with model growth and international expansion.
Agnes AI’s early success makes it a key example of Singapore’s growing AI scene, showing how local technology can mix talent, research, and infrastructure to compete globally, while also being a foundation for future AI developments in Singapore.