Singapore’s IMDA released a governance framework for agentic AI in government (via Drasko Draskovic, PhD). It is careful, thorough work on oversight, testing, and accountability. And it is worth recognizing for what it signals: the agentic state is not a thought experiment anymore. Serious governments are treating it as a policy issue that demands serious answers. Singapore and the IMDA, characteristically, got there first.
But I have seen this pattern before. A capable government produces thoughtful guidance. The document circulates. Other governments copy it, often without the preconditions that make it meaningful (GDPR anyone?).
Singapore can write governance frameworks for agents because Singapore has infrastructure worth governing. Decades of investment in APIs, digital identity, and interoperable systems mean that agents, whether built in-house or arriving via vendors, can actually do things. That is what makes oversight urgent. Most governments do not have this yet. They are still struggling with services that look good in international rankings but fail citizens who actually try to use them. In too many places, “the system is down” is not a status update: it is the product.
Governance frameworks for agents assume your infrastructure is mature enough for agents to matter. Where it is not, the priority is different. It is building the plumbing that makes delegation possible: opening APIs, making workflows machine-readable, improving data quality, and redesigning procurement around outcomes and iteration. We try to address this in The Agentic State.
For lower-capacity countries, the path is not copying governance layers from digital leaders. It is building agent-ready infrastructure, often starting with simpler forms of delegation or interaction, including voice-first services that work on a feature phone.
None of this is an argument against safety. But safety frameworks grafted onto broken systems do not produce safety, they produce paperwork.
Singapore’s example deserves to be admired, studied, and, for those willing to do the work, eventually followed. What it does not deserve is to be strip-mined for language by governments seeking praise without the infrastructure.