Southeast Asia is hungry for AI — and the money isn't just in subscriptions
Southeast Asia's rapid AI adoption is creating business opportunities beyond paid consumer subscriptions, a partner at Bain & Company, told CNBC.
Rapid AI adoption in Southeast Asia is generating business opportunities that extend beyond paid consumer subscriptions, according to a partner at Bain & Company. A report from Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, titled e-Conomy SEA 2026, indicates the region is on track to exceed $1 trillion by 2035.
In the e-commerce sector, Shopee became the first Southeast Asian platform built directly into ChatGPT by June 2026, following a February 2026 partnership with Google regarding “agentic shopping prototypes.” This service is live across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Meanwhile, Lazada developed its own AI shopping agent, Lazzie, which utilizes Alibaba’s Qwen model and has contributed to increased engagement during major sales events, e27 reports.
A June 2026 study by Checkout.com regarding consumer and merchant readiness found that shoppers are most comfortable delegating grocery shopping (41 per cent) and household supplies (31 per cent) to AI.
Brief written by urgent.news from CNBC, CNBC Technology, CNBC World, e27, Quartz — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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