By Tsubasa Nakazawa
Malaysia is currently at a crossroads. On one hand, the nation has secured a remarkable second-place ranking in ASEAN for AI readiness, a testament to its ambition and potential. Yet, there’s also been a growing concern beneath this progress: the workforce is on the brink of burnout.
While employers and leaders are pushing for greater productivity through technology, data revealed that at least 83% of Malaysian employees feel they lack sufficient time and energy to keep up. In other words, companies may be “AI ready,” but the people powering those companies feel anything but ready for the pace of change.
Strong government support and high adoption rates have primed the country for digital innovation. However, many businesses are still missing the mark where it matters most, how these tools are actually experienced by employees. At its core, AI should make work easier, removing repetitive and low-value tasks from human hands. Instead, all too often, AI is deployed in isolation, as a stand-alone add-on rather than a solution embedded into the way work naturally gets done.
Think of it like buying the latest kitchen appliance but never reading the instructions. It looks good on the counter, but when it doesn’t fit naturally into your cooking routine, it becomes more of a burden than a help. In the workplace, siloed AI deployments have the same effect, whereby they force employees to toggle between fragmented platforms, juggle duplicate processes, and work harder just to keep the system running.
The result? Confusion, inefficiency, and rising frustration over missed opportunities and burnout. Technology that is designed to empower ends up overwhelming, leaving the workforce drained instead of energised.
Closing the generational digital divide with “citizen development”
This problem is magnified in today’s multigenerational workforce. From Gen Z digital natives to baby boomers with decades of institutional knowledge, digital transformation is no longer just about speed; it must also be inclusive. Older employees may feel overwhelmed by the pace or excluded from initiatives entirely, while younger employees, though more digitally fluent, may lack the business context to fully maximise new tools.
This is where no-code platforms come into play to bridge that technical divide. These tools allow regular employees with no technical background to build apps that reflect their workflows, whether it’s digitising forms, automating purchase requests, or streamlining stock tracking. With the platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces, employees can design solutions that feel natural to the way they work, without needing to depend on scarce IT resources.
Consider the case of an insurance provider that had long struggled with inefficiency, processing thousands of policies each day while grappling with missed renewals, error-prone billing, and a patchwork of disconnected systems. By shifting to a no-code environment, frontline staff were able to centralise documentation, automate renewal reminders, and simplify billing without writing a single line of code, and on their own. Within days, what once took weeks of manual effort was transformed into a seamless digital workflow.
This approach, often described as “citizen development,” goes beyond simply democratising technology. It creates a bottom-up transformation where employees shape tools around their own needs, not the other way around. It builds a sense of ownership, inclusion, and confidence, all of which are essential for nurturing a culture of innovation and resilience.
The future of intelligent agents and human-centric productivity
With new advancements like generative AI, no-code tools are evolving even further. We are entering a new chapter where work can be done with a few simple text prompts. For instance, employees can simply describe what they need, and the system will build it for them.
This shift, called “vibe coding,” elevates productivity to a new level. Imagine an employee saying, “Create a system to track inventory and alert me when stock falls below 10 units,” and the platform instantly generates a working app. No manual configuration, no coding, just human intuition paired with machine precision.
However, with this ease of access comes new responsibility. Employees may lack awareness of the broader implications of their creations, from data security to regulatory compliance. Without proper oversight, organizations could face a proliferation of tools that solve immediate problems but create new risks, such as fragmentation, security breaches, or compliance failures.
The challenge for businesses is to strike a balance: encouraging innovation at the edges while ensuring alignment and security at the core.
The next chapter for tech talents
As these tools for vibe coding gain traction, the role of IT professionals must also evolve. While analysts have predicted that AI could reshape the skills required for 70% of jobs by 2030, this does not signal the end of tech expertise. On the contrary, it highlights a shift in value.
Instead of being gatekeepers who code every function, IT professionals must now become enablers and orchestrators. Their responsibilities move up the value chain—to designing secure architectures, ensuring interoperability, and managing governance frameworks that allow employees to innovate safely. By establishing “safe zones” for citizen developers, IT can empower staff to build confidently within guardrails that prevent security lapses or compliance breaches.
At the same time, organisations must also invest in reskilling and upskilling. This includes not only technical competencies but also human capabilities such as critical thinking, creativity, and ethical judgment, which will remain indispensable in an AI-driven future. For Malaysia, where talent shortages already pose a challenge, closing this skills gap will be critical to sustaining competitiveness in the decade ahead.
Ultimately, true readiness will be defined not by how many tools we deploy, but by whether these tools create an environment where people feel empowered to thrive in their roles. When businesses strike this balance, AI becomes more than a driver of growth—it becomes the foundation for a future of work that is sustainable, inclusive, and human at its core.
Tsubasa Nakazawa is Managing Director, Kintone Southeast Asia
