The Republic is taking its 'Smart Nation' ambition to the coal face of bureaucracy, training over 2,500 public officers in the high-stakes art of prompt engineering. This year's Prompt Royale, organised by GovTech, signals a crucial shift: the fight for administrative efficiency now hinges on a public servant's ability to converse intelligently with an AI. It is a competition that is rapidly evolving into Singapore’s most versatile engine for AI literacy, proving that mastery often lies not in complex code, but in sharp language.
The New Frontier of Public Service Competency
Singapore has long staked its global reputation on the efficiency and foresight of its civil service. Yet, as the advent of Generative AI (Gen AI) transforms white-collar work, the challenge is no longer about if the technology should be deployed, but how quickly and how well the machinery of government can wield it.
Enter Prompt Royale, GovTech’s annual, whole-of-government prompt engineering competition, which, in its third iteration, has cemented itself as the nation’s de facto training ground for AI fluency. Engaging over 2,500 officers—a near doubling of last year’s reach—the event transcends a mere contest; it is a critical upskilling initiative. As one presenter noted [
The stakes are far beyond bragging rights. A walk through the Central Business District (CBD) reveals the shift: where once administrative assistants were managing physical forms, today, they are interacting with proprietary large language models. The necessity, as highlighted in the video, is moving officers beyond achieving a '60% output' using basic civil forms to employing sophisticated prompting techniques to derive truly valuable and nuanced results [
From Policy to Prompt: GovTech’s Practical Ecosystem
This year’s competition underscored a significant maturation in GovTech’s approach to internal tooling. The programme expanded its purview from a concentration on a single, singular AI bot tool to an integrated ecosystem of proprietary tools [
Specialised Gen AI Tracks
The competition now uses four distinct GovTech products: AI bots, I say, Pair, and Transcribe. This move demonstrates a strategic push to make AI not just an accessory, but a core component of the public sector tech stack.
Furthermore, the introduction of the Knight's Kaizen software engineering track, utilising GitHub Co-pilot [
The event's reach now extends well beyond the competition floor, functioning as a "versatile engagement engine for AI literacy" [
Leadership Primers: Senior MSF leaders, including the DSSI and above, participated in time-bound prompt engineering tasks [
03:04:00 Education Integration: Incorporating prompt engineering into the Smart Nation Educator Fellowship module [
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This integration ensures that AI literacy is not treated as a siloed IT topic, but as a foundational capability across all levels of government and societal planning.
The King’s Edge: Why Character Wins the Prompt
The finale provided a crucial lesson in advanced prompt engineering. The champion, Matthew Lee from the Housing & Development Board (HDB) [
The deciding factor was his use of characterisation in his prompt [
For Singapore’s 'Smart Nation' initiative, this insight is gold. It confirms that the human element—the ability to articulate context, intention, and character—remains the key differentiator in a world saturated with AI-powered tools. The best output comes not from the most technically dry prompt, but the one that best simulates human-level understanding and specificity.
Conclusion & Takeaways
Prompt Royale is more than an annual spectacle; it is a live-action barometer of Singapore's success in cultivating practical AI talent within the public sector. The results demonstrate that the journey to a Smart Nation requires systematic, hands-on, and gamified upskilling. The ultimate prize is not the S$2,000 voucher awarded to the 'Prompt King,' but the demonstrable increase in capability that allows the entire civil service to leverage Gen AI for better, more efficient governance.
Key Practical Takeaways:
Prompting is a Strategic Skill: Public officers must move beyond basic queries to master multi-type prompts (thinking, effort, motivation) to achieve high-quality results [
01:11:16 Integrate Tools, Don't Isolate: GovTech's shift to an ecosystem (AI bots, Pair, Transcribe, etc.) confirms that AI is becoming seamlessly integrated into core administrative functions.
Contextualisation is King: The champion's success proves that giving AI a defined 'character' or persona improves the quality and relevance of the output, a critical lesson for contextualising services to Singaporeans.
Gamification Drives Literacy: The competition structure is a highly effective, immersive, and hands-on method for driving mass AI literacy and securing leadership engagement [
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Singapore Prompt Royale?
Prompt Royale is Singapore's largest whole-of-government prompt engineering competition, designed and organised by GovTech to upskill public officers in the effective and responsible use of Generative AI tools in their daily work.
What specific tools do public officers use during the competition?
The 2025 edition saw contestants use an expanded set of GovTech tools, including AI bots (a chatbot interface), Transcribe, Pair, and I say, alongside GitHub Co-pilot for the software engineering track.
Who won the Prompt Royale 2025 finals and what was the key learning?
The champion was Matthew Lee from the Housing & Development Board (HDB). The key learning was the effectiveness of prompt characterisation—giving the AI a specific, relatable persona to generate more nuanced and superior outputs.
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