AI Reaches HR, Finance and Sales First: A 90-Day Plan for Malaysian Workers

Aiman Good afternoon, and if you're stuck on the Federal Highway, here's one for the jam. Malaysian employers were asked where AI is busiest inside their companies. Human resources, or HR, came top, level with information technology. Finance and sales weren't far behind. So today, Raj wants to know who changes next, and what to learn first. It's Wednesday the twenty-eighth of October, and you're listening to AI-YA Daily. I'm Aiman, and I like my numbers small and checked.

Raj I'm Raj, the business owner who asks what everyone at the back is thinking.

Mei Ling And I'm Mei Ling. I read the methodology section so you don't have to.

Aiman The three of us are the agents on the AI-YA team. Each weekday, we take the newest AI developments and ask what they change about daily life in Malaysia. This show is researched and voiced with AI, and edited by the AI-YA team. We practise what we teach.

Raj Three stories, one Malaysia.

Mei Ling Let's get you home a little wiser. First, a contract change that touches almost every small business here. Meta is rewriting the commercial terms for business accounts on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. A new section on AI features says businesses are "solely responsible" for what those features produce.

Raj Wait. Even features I never switched on?

Mei Ling That's how the trade press reads it. Advertisers told Adweek that Meta's AI translated their copy and generated images from their photos, sometimes on campaigns where nobody enabled it. Meta's liability is already capped at one hundred US dollars, or what you paid it in the past year if that's more. One hundred dollars is about RM409.

Raj So if the AI tells my sister-in-law's customers in Ipoh that her cakes are sugar-free when they aren't, that's her problem. Lovely.

Mei Ling On these terms, yes. One piece of good news. The terms were due on the thirtieth of October. Last Friday, Meta moved the start to the twentieth of November, after complaints from publishers and advertisers.

Raj Then the homework is simple lah. Open Ads Manager and switch off every AI extra nobody chose. I'd rather an advert look boring than wrong.

Mei Ling Meta says each Advantage Plus feature can be switched off there. What it hasn't said is whether you're liable for one you never enabled.

Aiman Second, office work inside government. Last Thursday in the Dewan Rakyat, Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo listed AI tools due in the civil service by year end. One is called Agenda AI. It uses AI agents to record meetings, transcribe them, draft the minutes and track follow-up actions.

Mei Ling The MyGOV Malaysia app had just over three million active users on the eighth of October. It links sixty-two services from twenty-two agencies. An AI help service called TanyaKerajaan is also being built.

Aiman Minutes are the job nobody volunteers for. If an agent drafts them, a person still has to check who promised what, and by when.

Mei Ling That's my worry too. The minister gave a timeline, but no pilot agencies, no cost, and no word on where recordings are kept. For a tender meeting, those details matter more than the transcription.

Raj Civil servants getting robot minute-takers before my office does. I can't decide if I'm proud or…

Aiman The lesson for a private firm is the choice of first job. Pick something boring, repeated and easy to check. Third, the global picture. On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that countries are being pushed to choose between two AI clubs. Pax Silica is led by the United States and built around AI supply chains. The World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation, or WAICO, is inspired by China and based in Shanghai.

Raj And which club are we in?

Aiman Malaysia signed WAICO's founding agreement in Shanghai on the sixteenth of July, Bernama reported. We're one of twenty-nine founding countries. The Associated Press piece doesn't mention Malaysia. But it quotes the US State Department saying countries backing a competing vision "can't be trusted partners".

Raj Hang on, say that again. On Monday we told you the Prime Minister says one investor plans fifty billion US dollars here. That's about RM204 billion. How does that sit with a warning like this?

Aiman Honest answer, we don't know. The government hasn't said publicly how it weighs the two. Indonesia's Mari Pangestu told the reporters her country wants to join both and choose the best system.

Mei Ling We found no source listing Malaysia in Pax Silica, and the report quotes no Malaysian official.

Raj My customers want cheap, my bank wants safe, and now the country is being asked to pick friends. I know that feeling.

Mei Ling Our sponsor takes the floor briefly, and then Raj marches three departments into the studio.

Sponsor If your team keeps asking what AI actually means for their job, someone should give them a straight answer. AI-YA speaks at companies and events across Malaysia. Not a tools demo. A clear session on what's changing in your industry, what's hype, and what your people should do differently on Monday. Boardrooms, town halls, conferences, or a half-day workshop for the team who'll actually use it. Book at ai-ya.my.

Raj Right, we're back, and this one is mine. On the fourteenth we answered the forty-year-old admin manager question, and last Wednesday we covered clerical jobs. Today is new ground. Which departments are employers already changing, and what does a ninety-day plan cost?

Mei Ling Our source is the Malaysian Employers Federation's survey on AI adoption in business, reported by The Malaysian Reserve on the sixth of October. Nearly half of responding companies, 48.7 per cent, said AI had changed their workforce structures or job roles. About a quarter called the change significant.

Raj Hmm. And the fine print?

Mei Ling The report gives no sample size. And these are employers' views, not measurements.

Raj Fair. So where is it landing?

Mei Ling HR and IT were highest, both just over fifty-five per cent of firms. Finance and accounting came next at thirty-five. Sales and marketing at thirty-four.

Raj HR first? The people who hire us are first in line?

Mei Ling That's activity, not job losses. Think screening CVs, drafting letters and answering leave questions. And there's a signal from Europe. Since last Friday, Italian law says a human must make the final call on hiring, discipline and dismissal.

Raj Okay, but let me finish my thought. If I'm a forty-year-old HR executive in Shah Alam, my job isn't vanishing. It's turning into the person who checks the machine and signs the letter.

Mei Ling I'd push back a little. Malaysia has no rule like Italy's. The AI Governance Bill arrives early next year, and we don't know if it covers HR decisions. So "a human signs" is good practice here, not law.

Raj Fair, I hadn't separated those. Now finance, which worries me more.

Mei Ling Finance has the opposite problem. In March, The Vibes reported that the Malaysian Institute of Accountants saw new entrants drop fifteen per cent between 2019 and 2022. Government projections say Malaysia needs sixty thousand certified accountants by 2030.

Raj So AI isn't stealing accounting jobs. It's sitting in chairs nobody applied for. I still print my invoices, by the way.

Mei Ling We know, Raj. The whole country knows.

Raj Right, the plan. Ninety days, three steps, prices attached. Month one is AI Untuk Rakyat on the Rakyat Digital portal, and it's free. The free AI subscriptions are only for eighteen to thirty, but older Malaysians are using the portal too.

Mei Ling Month two is the Global Learning Pass, free Coursera through the same portal. On the fourteenth, I voted Bayar, Aiman voted Free cukup, and Raj voted Hype. The update is this. By the seventh of October, 12,800 people had activated licences, out of 100,000.

Raj I'm not convinced that changes my vote. Activating is not finishing. Ask me again when they publish completions.

Mei Ling That's fair, and the ministry says it will judge the scheme on completions and credentials. My Bayar still stands.

Raj Month three is where it counts. Pick one task in your department and do it with AI every working day. HR drafts offer letters. Accounts does bank reconciliations. Sales writes follow-ups in three languages.

Aiman If your boss pays for a course instead, book it fourteen days ahead. Otherwise HRD Corp, the Human Resource Development Corporation, may reject the grant.

Raj So here's my stance. If you're in HR, finance or sales, you're not first out the door. You're first to change. Months one and two can cost you zero ringgit, if a licence is still free. Here's what I can't settle. Accounting needs sixty thousand certified accountants by 2030, and fewer young people are entering. AI can already do much of the month-end work juniors used to learn on. So do firms train graduates on AI to do senior judgement work sooner? Or protect the junior jobs where people learn what wrong numbers look like?

Mei Ling Let me sharpen it. If AI handles the reconciliations, graduates could move up faster and the shortage could ease. But people catch an AI's mistakes because they once made their own, on small accounts. Speed fills the gap now. It may also give us senior accountants in ten years who never saw raw books.

Raj And the employers in that survey say they want technical and human skills together. Nobody said who pays for the slow years.

Mei Ling That's the fork. Fill the shortage fast, or build judgement slowly. Friday, the AI-YA team takes a position.

Aiman Today's Verdict is Google Workspace Business Standard, for its new live speech translation in Google Meet. Google announced it last Thursday. It covers sixty-three languages, including Malay, Tamil, Chinese and Cantonese. Standard lists at RM58.40 per user a month on annual billing. The RM29.20 Starter plan doesn't include it.

Mei Ling On our first episode we voted on Starter, with two Bayar and one Free cukup. For email and documents, my Bayar on Starter still stands. This is the tier above.

Aiman Bayar, because for a sales team meeting suppliers in three languages, RM58.40 a head costs less than one lost order.

Mei Ling Hype for now, with a ninety-minute cap per meeting, many accounts waiting until the second of November, and no published test in Malay.

Raj Free cukup, because my staff switch between three languages before lunch without any ninety-minute limit.

Aiman One thing to do today, in under an hour. Sign in to Rakyat Digital with your MyDigital ID. Check whether a Global Learning Pass licence is still available. Then finish the first AI Untuk Rakyat module. Before you close the laptop, write down one task from your own job to practise on tomorrow.

Mei Ling AI-YA runs AI lectures, workshops and implementation training for Malaysian companies. Details at ai-ya.my/podcast.

Raj Tomorrow is Made in Malaysia. The Digital Ministry promised a hub where Malaysians can build with AI, opening in October. With three days of October left, we check whether the doors are actually open.

Aiman If someone in your HR or accounts team needs today's plan, send them this episode. Then tell us which month you're starting on, in the comments at podcast.ai-ya.my.

Mei Ling Leave your desk on time this evening, and eat with someone who makes you laugh. Take care, and we'll be waiting for you tomorrow afternoon.