PETALING JAYA: Ideanation Technologies Sdn Bhd is betting on agentic artificial intelligence (AI) to help businesses lower operating costs and improve productivity, as companies increasingly look towards automation to manage routine tasks.
The company, which launched its Agent Engine AI platform last week, believes the technology could be particularly useful for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) seeking to expand their operations without significantly increasing their workforce.
Its founder and group chief executive officer, Raymond Dinesh Gabriel, said agentic AI could enable employees to take on a greater volume of work by automating repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value activities.
“One person now using agentic AI can do the job of about four or five people. It brings costs down significantly,” he told StarBiz. He said the aim was not to replace workers but to help businesses make better use of their existing workforce.
“We don’t want to take away jobs. But now, the people who have the jobs, they can be free to do most strategic things.”
Ideanation, which has about 180 employees across the group, has also implemented the technology within its own operations.
Gabriel said businesses, particularly smaller companies, often face constraints in hiring additional employees as they grow.
He believes automating non-core functions could help these companies remain competitive while improving their profit margins.
“Because not every startup, not every company, you know, can afford to just keep hiring people and going,” he said.
The newly launched Agent Engine AI platform is designed to make agentic AI accessible to businesses and individuals without requiring extensive technical knowledge.
Unlike conventional AI tools that rely heavily on users providing detailed instructions, the platform allows users to create AI agents for specific tasks, including generating sales leads, managing digital marketing activities and producing written content.
Gabriel said affordability and ease of use were the two main challenges the company sought to address.
He noted that many businesses were interested in adopting AI but lacked the technical expertise to develop effective prompts or configure AI systems.
The platform offers three subscription plans priced at US$20, US$50 and US$100 a month, with differences in the number of agents users can create and their usage limits.
Under the US$50 Pro plan, which is equivalent to less than RM7 a day, Gabriel said users can create up to six AI agents,
To illustrate the potential cost savings, Gabriel said the monthly salary of a digital marketing manager, estimated at up to RM7,000, could instead cover subscriptions for about 28 employees.
Collectively, these employees could create as many as 168 AI agents to handle various tasks, he said. However, the company is positioning the platform as a productivity tool rather than a direct replacement for employees.
Beyond the subscription platform, Ideanation’s AI business also provides consultancy services to help companies identify processes that can be automated and develop AI agents suited to their operations.
It also builds customised AI-native software for businesses requiring more specialised solutions. Unlike conventional software with AI features added later, AI-native systems are designed with AI as their foundation, Gabriel said.
He said this approach allowed companies to develop more efficient systems rather than attempting to integrate AI into existing software.
The company is also exploring additional applications, including automating administrative processes such as claims management.
He cited discussions with a company seeking to simplify its claims procedures, which were taking up considerable employee time that could otherwise be spent serving customers.
On data security, Gabriel said Ideanation’s platform uses third-party services with end-to-end encryption and allows users to connect existing cloud storage systems without requiring their files to be stored separately by the company.
Its core large language models include Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.
Ideanation operates through two subsidiaries, Createwills Sdn Bhd, which provides legal and financial technology solutions, and People Systems Consultancy Sdn Bhd.
Its business is supported by two core service areas – branding and digital marketing, and AI-native technology.
Looking ahead, Gabriel said the company was targeting at least RM10mil in group revenue over the next year, with its digital marketing operations expected to contribute between RM2mil and RM3mil.
The company is also aiming to grow group revenue to about RM100mil within three years, supported by wider adoption of its AI solutions.
While Gabriel described the business margins as “pretty good”, he acknowledged that the company would need to continue investing in software development and expanding the range of tasks its AI agents could perform.
The company is also looking beyond Malaysia, with plans to expand the platform’s adoption across the region.
Gabriel said the longer-term objective was to make agentic AI accessible to businesses of all sizes, particularly micro enterprises that may lack the financial resources to invest in more sophisticated technology.
“This is the app for the everyday man to actually equalise and level the playing field,” he said.
