Agnes AI tops 5m users, launches open-source SEA LLM

A Singapore-built AI platform called Agnes AI has passed 5 million registered users within six months of launch and has released an open-source version of its large language model, Agnes-SeaLLM-8B.

The company said the product has reached 200,000 daily active users, and nearly 50% of its users are from Southeast Asia. It also mentioned Agnes has placed in the Top 10 productivity rankings on Google Play in Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Agnes AI said it developed its own 8-billion-parameter model in-house. The company positioned that work as part of a wider push for local control of AI systems as governments and institutions look to reduce reliance on overseas technology stacks.

Product approach

Agnes AI described Agnes as an all-in-one AI assistant. The company said the product includes search, "deep research" and "wide research" features. It also includes tools for generating slides, design assets and spreadsheets, along with Filters, CoVibe group chat and an Explore news feature.

The company said it aimed for an integrated workflow across research and presentation tasks. Agnes AI said users can move from questions to a presentation without switching apps.

Agnes AI said third-party analytics show Agnes has surpassed 2.97 million monthly active users. The company described this as one of the fastest growth profiles among AI products.

Model release

Agnes AI has open-sourced Agnes-SeaLLM-8B and made it available on Hugging Face, a platform used by developers and researchers to distribute machine learning models. The company said it built the model from the ground up rather than relying on open-source foundation models developed outside the region.

Agnes AI said its 8-billion-parameter model performs at state-of-the-art levels among sub-10B models. It said the model outperforms several 20B models across benchmarks. The company attributed results to optimisation and training techniques.

The company said Agnes-SeaLLM-8B supports Southeast Asian languages alongside Chinese and English. Agnes AI positioned language support as part of its approach to cross-cultural use in the region.

Research base

Agnes AI linked its model work to academic research. It said the model builds on research accepted at "top-tier ICIS conferences". It also cited a paper titled "Stable and Efficient Policy Optimisation for Agentic Search and Reasoning (DSPO)", which it said was submitted to ICLR 2025 and published on arXiv.

The company said it is collaborating with Singapore institutions on large-scale AI training initiatives. It also said it plans to train a next-generation, larger-scale model locally in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University.

Founder background

Agnes AI said its founder, Bruce, studied at Raffles Institution and later pursued dual degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. The company said he studied under a Turing Award-winning professor and graduated with high honours ahead of schedule.

It said he worked at Microsoft and LinkedIn and co-founded a startup that reached millions of downloads. Agnes AI said he returned to Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic and pursued a PhD in AI at the National University of Singapore, where he developed the foundations for Agnes.

Agnes AI said it assembled a team with talent drawn from NUS and NTU, as well as international institutions including MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Funding and expansion

Agnes AI said it is nearing the close of a funding round worth tens of millions of dollars. It linked the fundraising to plans for model scaling and international expansion.

The company's growth claims arrive as governments and investors increase attention on national and regional AI development. Agnes AI pointed to European backing for Mistral and national initiatives across Japan and the Middle East as examples of that trend.

Agnes AI said its strategy centres on a proprietary Singapore-origin AI system trained and developed in-house, with Southeast Asia as a key market for adoption.

Agnes AI said it expects to proceed with local training of a larger model in collaboration with NUS and NTU as it advances its fundraising process.