The Complete Guide to Using AI in the Government Industry in Brunei Darussalam in 2025

Brunei Darussalam is treating artificial intelligence as a strategic lever for 2025 public-sector transformation: government leaders say AI will be central to Brunei's next Digital Economy Master Plan, positioning AI to boost public services, healthcare and education while stressing that systems must be safe, ethical and inclusive (Thescoop article: AI central to Brunei Digital Economy Master Plan (2025)).

To build citizen trust, AITI's principles and Brunei's voluntary AI guidelines on transparency, human oversight, and risk management emphasise transparency, human oversight and risk management - an ASEAN-aligned, innovation-friendly approach that still demands practical skills on the ground.

For agencies ready to pilot AI responsibly, workforce upskilling matters: Nucamp's Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus teaches prompt-writing and workplace use cases so teams can translate policy into real, measurable improvements; for a small, highly connected nation, that mix of guardrails plus hands-on capability will determine whether AI helps everyone.

Bootcamp	Length	Early bird cost	Registration
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582	Register for Nucamp AI Essentials for Work (15 Weeks)

“AI will be central to Brunei's next Digital Economy Master Plan.”

Brunei's 2025 AI landscape mixes cautious stewardship with practical pilots: AITI's Artificial Intelligence Governance Symposium in Bandar Seri signalled that government leaders expect AI to be deployed - but only with safeguards in place (AITI Artificial Intelligence Governance Symposium 2025 coverage), and the same tone underpins Brunei's voluntary AI Guide, which spells out seven guiding principles including transparency & explainability, security &safety, fairness & equity, and data protection & governance (Brunei voluntary AI guidelines 2025).

That policy backdrop is already steering concrete use cases - from healthcare resource forecasting that helps optimise bed allocation and staffing to meet seasonal demand to ROI-focused efficiency projects and border-control automation - so agencies can test tools where the benefits and risks are visible (Practical government AI use cases in Brunei Darussalam 2025); the net effect is a small, connected nation plotting careful pilots rather than rushing wholesale change, with the “how” of safe deployment now as important as the “what.”

“AI should be used responsibly: Brunei senior official”

Brunei's approach to trustworthy AI in 2025 is deliberately practical: the government published voluntary AI guidelines (April 30, 2025) that boil policy down to seven core principles - think of them as a compact checklist for any agency planning a pilot - covering transparency & explainability, security & safety, fairness & equity, and data protection & governance, among others (Brunei Releases Voluntary AI Guidelines); this principles-based, technology- and sector-neutral playbook mirrors ASEAN's adaptable, innovation-friendly stance and lets Brunei tailor rules to local needs while it finalises a Personal Data Protection Law and a national AI strategy under the 2025 Digital Economy Masterplan (NBR brief on ASEAN and Brunei AI governance).

The net result is a governance ladder: soft-law guidance to build trust and test use cases, plus planned data-protection teeth to follow - so ministries can pilot AI where benefits and risks are clear, backed by a familiar set of guardrails rather than one-size-fits-all regulation.

Brunei AI Guiding Principles (2025)
Transparency & explainability
Security & safety
Fairness & equity
Data protection & governance
Human oversight
Risk management
Accountability

The Personal Data Protection Order (PDPO) 2025 is the missing piece that makes Brunei's AI story practical: approved in January 2025 and rolled out in phases with a one‑year grace period, the PDPO gives individuals clearer rights - informed consent, the ability to opt‑in or opt‑out and to withdraw consent, access and rectification, portability and erasure - while placing new obligations on private‑sector organisations and NGOs that handle citizen data (The Scoop article: Brunei enacts Personal Data Protection Order (PDPO) 2025).

AITI is designated as the Responsible Authority and will drive compliance, capacity building and advisory guidance (including a CIPM competency programme and a mid‑2025 Personal Data Practitioner course), and the PDPO brings concrete rules for breach reporting (notify the authority as soon as practicable and no later than three calendar days for incidents causing significant harm) plus cross‑border transfer safeguards and hefty enforcement levers - administrative penalties up to BND 1 million or 10% of turnover are on the table (DLA Piper brief: Brunei personal data protection law (PDPO 2025)).

For government AI pilots this means vigilance: even where the PDPO targets private actors, data sharing with vendors and public‑private workflows must align with these new requirements and with existing government frameworks such as the Data Sharing Guidelines and Official Secrets Act so citizen trust and legal compliance travel with any AI rollout.

PDPO 2025 - Quick facts	Key point
Enacted	January 2025 (phased implementation)
Scope	Private sector organisations and NGOs
Responsible Authority	AITI
Grace period	One year to comply
Breach notification	Notify Authority ASAP, no later than 3 calendar days for significant incidents
Penalties	Up to BND 1,000,000 or 10% of annual turnover
Other requirements	Data protection officers, consent rules, cross‑border safeguards

“It is crucial for organisations to assess their current practices, and to establish proper processes before the full enforcement of the PDPO,” he stated.

Regional alignment is a practical strength for Brunei in 2025: ASEAN's Expanded Guide on AI Governance and Ethics (published Jan 13, 2025) gives Brunei a ready-made playbook for generative AI - calling out concrete risks such as anthropomorphism and persuasive mistakes, factually inaccurate outputs and disinformation, deepfakes and impersonation, IP infringement, privacy threats, and embedded biases, while urging measures like accountability, data governance, incident reporting and security controls to harness AI for public good (ASEAN Expanded Guide on AI Governance and Ethics - DataGuidance).

Brunei's own principles-based approach and its ongoing moves on a national AI strategy and the PDPO mean the country can adapt ASEAN's soft-law recommendations into local rules and pilots without stifling innovation - an important advantage for a small, tightly connected nation where a single bad deepfake or data breach can ripple quickly through civic life (Charting ASEAN's Path to AI Governance - NBR brief); the result is regional coherence plus national flexibility - a compass for agencies that must balance risk, trust and tangible public-sector benefits.

Key generative AI risks (ASEAN Expanded Guide, Jan 2025)
Mistakes and anthropomorphism (highly coherent, persuasive errors)
Factually inaccurate responses and disinformation
Deepfakes, impersonation, fraudulent and malicious activities
Intellectual property infringement
Privacy and confidentiality risks
Propagation of embedded biases

Government agencies preparing AI pilots in Brunei should treat compliance as a practical, stepwise checklist: start with an AI inventory to map where models touch data and services (the first step in many state programs), then run risk assessments that tie each use case back to Brunei's seven voluntary AI principles - transparency, fairness, security, human oversight and the rest - so projects aren't just innovative but verifiably trustworthy (Brunei voluntary AI guidelines for responsible and trustworthy AI); next, align procurement and vendor contracts with the PDPO-era expectations for consent, cross‑border transfers and breach reporting (remember the strict timelines for notifying the authority if incidents cause significant harm), and embed oversight by a governance body that keeps a rolling register of audits, impact assessments and board-level reviews as recommended in public-sector roadmaps (state model AI governance requirements and agency inventories) and board governance frameworks (Deloitte AI Board Governance Roadmap for public-sector oversight).

Cap the checklist with staff training, a clear incident‑response playbook and measurable KPIs (time‑to‑value, bias metrics and ROI) so pilots move from theory to safer, audit‑ready practice - because in a small nation a single deepfake or data lapse can ripple across the whole community, making these steps mission‑critical, not optional.

AI is already reshaping Brunei's key industries in 2025 with healthcare leading the charge: the BruHealth platform has moved from pandemic tracking to a personalised, AI-enhanced health ecosystem that logs weekly engagement from roughly 63% of residents and uses gamified incentives (the “BN on the Move” challenge drew nearly 49,000 participants who clocked 1 billion steps in eight days) to drive preventive behaviour - see the World Economic Forum's BruHealth review for details (BruHealth platform and early AI results).

Across the public sector, AI tools such as predictive analytics, telemedicine and automated diagnostics promise better resource allocation, shorter wait times and sharper disease surveillance (BytePlus documents these healthcare use cases), while universities like UBD are fast-tracking talent through applied-AI degrees and digital-public-health masters so local skills match new demand (UBD's AI and digital-health programmes).

Outside health, AI-driven efficiency projects and robotics can cut costs and free staff for higher‑value work, but small‑nation dynamics mean a single data lapse or deepfake can ripple widely - so pairing practical pilots with strong governance and workforce reskilling is the difference between incremental improvement and transformative, equitable impact.

Metric	Value
Population (approx.)	460,000
BruHealth weekly logins	63% of residents
Unique users - lab results	566,403
Unique users - imaging results	335,320
“BN on the Move” participation	~49,000 participants; 1 billion steps in 8 days

“The future is always a lot closer than we think,” UBD Vice-Chancellor Dr Hazri Haji Kifle said. “So it's imperative that we, as Brunei Darussalam's premier higher education institute, remain two steps ahead to anticipate how the world moves towards further digitalisation and especially in the ethical use of AI in various aspects of study and work.”

By 2025 Brunei's government services can use AI as a practical workhorse: generative chatbots and virtual agents speed routine citizen interactions and draft documents, freeing officers to focus on complex appeals; predictive analytics underpin healthcare resource forecasting to optimise bed allocation and staffing during seasonal surges (healthcare resource forecasting); and internal tools that generate code, summarise cases and flag anomalies streamline IT, finance and procurement so teams spend less time on repetitive tasks.

Field-facing examples include biometrics and risk‑scoring at borders to speed clearance while protecting rights, and AI-assisted surveillance and triage in public health that support faster, targeted responses - a shift toward

precision public health

that regional partners and WHO are actively promoting (WHO: Building synergies for digital health and generative AI).

These capabilities come with a clear caveat from Brunei's leaders: systems must be used responsibly, with human oversight, training and continuous evaluation to prevent persuasive errors, bias or privacy harm (Brunei senior official: AI should be used responsibly).

In short, practical pilots - a virtual front counter for routine permits, predictive hospital rostering, automated case summaries - can deliver faster, cheaper service, but only when governance, workforce capacity and monitoring keep humans squarely in the loop.

WHO high‑level recommendations (selected)
Connect - person‑centred digital health and continuity of care
Educate - train the health workforce and public on safe AI use
Invest - durable digital infrastructure and equitable access
Evaluate - ongoing implementation and impact assessment

When asking which country

uses AI the most,

the headline answer is that the United States still dominates the frontier - U.S. institutions produced 40 notable AI models in 2024 and private AI investment dwarfs most peers - yet China is rapidly closing the performance gap and many governments are racing to scale adoption rather than simply chase the biggest models (see Stanford HAI's 2025 AI Index for the full picture: Stanford HAI 2025 AI Index).

For Brunei, the lesson isn't to replicate U.S. or Chinese scale but to concentrate on the readiness pillars that actually make AI useful: strong government processes, dependable data & infrastructure, and targeted pilots where benefits and risks are visible - Singapore's SENSE LLM pilot, which shortened policy review timelines by up to three months, is a useful model of focused payoff (Government AI Readiness Index case studies).

Small, connected nations like Brunei can punch above their weight by getting the basics right (governance, consent and cross‑border safeguards), picking

good‑enough

open or packaged solutions for public services, and investing in workforce upskilling so each pilot becomes a repeatable playbook rather than a one‑off experiment; in short, prioritize readiness and measured diffusion over a race for headline-grabbing model counts.

Global AI snapshot (selected)	Value / comparison
Notable AI models (2024)	U.S.: 40; China: 15 (Stanford HAI)
Private AI investment (2024)	U.S.: $109.1B; China: $9.3B (Stanford HAI)
Organizations reporting AI use (2024)	78% reported using AI (Stanford HAI)

The way forward for Brunei in 2025 is clear: lock the governance basics, run tightly scoped pilots, and invest in people so policy becomes practical. Start by embedding AITI's principles - transparency, human oversight and risk management - into every procurement and pilot (see AITI Guidelines on AI Governance and Ethics - The Scoop), then prioritise high-value, low‑surprise projects such as the PMO's smart recruitment screeners and the StrategusAI policy toolkit to prove benefits quickly and safely (see PMO Adopts AI to Improve Public Service Efficiency - The Scoop).

Tackle the known skills gap with practical, workplace-focused training - teams can build prompt-writing and deployment skills in a 15‑week, job‑ready format like AI Essentials for Work syllabus - Nucamp (15 weeks) - so pilots produce repeatable, measurable value rather than one‑off experiments.

Pair each pilot with clear KPIs (time‑to‑value, bias checks, breach reporting) and a governance playbook that maps vendor contracts to emerging rules; in a small nation, getting these building blocks right is the fastest route from promising pilots to equitable, trusted public services.

“AI will be central to Brunei's next Digital Economy Master Plan.”