Will AI replace secretaries in Singapore?
AI tools can already draft and sort emails, suggest meeting times, write first versions of letters and minutes, and fill in routine records, so a large share of a secretary's daily tasks is moving to software. People are still needed for the parts that rest on trust and judgement, such as knowing which request a manager must see first, handling a sensitive message with care, and dealing with visitors and colleagues face to face. The job is likely to change a lot, with more time on coordination and less on typing and filing.
Why it scores 8
Secretaries perform primarily digital, routine administrative work—email management, scheduling, document preparation, data entry—that is highly susceptible to AI automation and intelligent assistants. While some tasks require contextual judgment (managing stakeholder communications, complex scheduling), most daily work is standardized, repetitive, and performed on computers, making the role vulnerable to significant productivity displacement as AI handles communications, organization, and routine coordination tasks.
The score reads the job title, not you. Your own exposure depends on your tasks, employer and tools. A high score means the daily work changes, not that the job disappears.
What secretaries can do
Let AI draft, then check it yourself
Use assistants for first drafts of emails, minutes and routine letters, and read each one before it goes out. Your value is catching wrong names, wrong tone and missing context.
Take on coordination and event work
Offer to run meetings, visits and team events from start to finish. These tasks involve people, last-minute changes and judgement that software handles poorly.
Become the go-to person for new tools
Learn how the office's AI tools sort mail, book calendars and file records, then show colleagues how to use them well. SkillsFuture options can help you build this skill alongside your daily work.
Similar jobs
Other jobs in the General & keyboard clerks group, largest first.
Less exposed jobs with similar pay
Jobs scoring 6 or lower whose median pay is within 15% of this one.
- Slimming consultant
- Safety inspector (vehicles, processes and products)
- Civil engineering technician
- Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner
- Automation technician
See where secretaries sit among all 481 jobs, and how their group has grown or shrunk.
See it on the mapWhere these numbers come from
- Pay: MOM Occupational Wages 2025, Table 4. Median and 25th–75th percentile gross monthly wage of full-time resident employees, June 2025, worked out across industries.
- Jobs: estimated by spreading SingStat's employment totals (M182081) evenly across the occupations in each industry. Treat it as an order of magnitude.
- Group trend: change in employed residents in the General & keyboard clerks group, 2021 to 2025 (MOM Labour Force in Singapore, Table D8). It is measured for the whole group, not this job alone.
- AI exposure: scored 0–10 against a calibrated rubric by Huper Technology. How the score works.
- Advice: written for this page from the score and its reasons. It is general guidance, not career advice for your situation.
Cite as: Huper Technology, “Secretary”, AI Exposure of the Singapore Job Market, https://jobs.huper.technology/jobs/secretary/ (CC BY 4.0). SSOC 2020 code 41201.