Southeast Asia’s digital economy is one of the great growth stories of the twenty-first century. A market that generated roughly US$40 billion in Gross Merchandise Value a decade ago has surged past US$300 billion in 2025, driven by over 200 million new internet users who have leapfrogged legacy systems and embraced mobile-first, digital-native lifestyles.

Fintech platforms, super-apps, cross-border e-commerce, and digital identity services have become the connective tissue of daily life across Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Yet beneath this remarkable momentum lies a structural vulnerability that threatens to undermine the entire edifice: a widening gap between digital adoption and digital security.

The central argument of this article is not merely that cybersecurity matters. It is that cybersecurity has evolved into something far more fundamental — the trust layer upon which the entire digital economy is built. In the same way that contract law and property rights enabled market economies to scale, robust cybersecurity infrastructure is the prerequisite for digital commerce, digital finance, and digital governance to function at scale. For founders, investors, and policymakers operating in the SEA tech ecosystem, this reframing carries profound strategic implications.

The threat landscape is not a future problem — it is a present one

The scale of the challenge is already significant. The average cost of a data breach in ASEAN reached US$3.2 million in 2024, a six per cent year-over-year increase, with financial institutions in Vietnam and tech firms in Singapore among the most targeted sectors.

More than 135,000 ransomware attacks were recorded across Southeast Asia in 2024 alone, with 67 per cent of all regional cyber incidents concentrated in just a handful of high-growth markets. Over half of SEA consumers encountered scams on a weekly basis in 2023, and 66 per cent of organisations reported data leaks in the same period.

These are not abstract statistics. Behind each breach is a startup that loses its customer database, a fintech that watches its fraud rates spike, or a logistics platform whose operations are held hostage by ransomware. A single high-profile incident can destroy years of brand equity in a region where consumer trust is still being established.

As one regional expert bluntly observed, “a single breach can destroy trust, slow fundraising, and damage partnerships”. In a market where digital adoption is still accelerating, that trust, once broken, is exceptionally difficult to rebuild.

Also Read: Rethinking cybersecurity practices as Non-Human Identities (NHIs) surge

From cost centre to competitive moat

The traditional framing of cybersecurity as a cost centre — a necessary but unglamorous line item in the IT budget — is dangerously outdated. For startups operating in the SEA ecosystem, cybersecurity is increasingly a competitive differentiator and an investor signal. The question is no longer whether to invest in security, but how to make that investment visible and strategic.

Consider what a strong cybersecurity posture communicates to the market. It signals operational maturity, which is precisely what investors scrutinise during due diligence. It signals data stewardship, which is what enterprise clients and government partners require before signing contracts. And it signals resilience, which is what consumers increasingly demand before entrusting a platform with their financial and personal data.

In a region where private funding grew 15 per cent to US$7.7 billion in the past twelve months, and where investor attention is shifting toward governance and sustainability alongside growth metrics, the ability to demonstrate a credible security posture is a tangible fundraising asset.

The most forward-thinking founders in the region are already internalising this logic. Rather than treating security as a post-product-market-fit concern, they are embedding it into their architecture from day one — adopting encryption standards, least-privilege access controls, and secure coding practices as foundational choices rather than retrofits. As one practitioner advises, “cyber must be designed into products and operations early, because outsourcing everything can create a false sense of safety”.

The zero trust moment for SEA startups

Perhaps no concept better captures the paradigm shift underway than Zero Trust architecture. The traditional perimeter-based security model — which assumed that anything inside the corporate network could be trusted — was already strained before the pandemic. The explosion of remote work, cloud-native infrastructure, and API-driven ecosystems has rendered it effectively obsolete.

Zero Trust operates on a fundamentally different premise: never trust, always verify. Every user, device, and application must continuously authenticate itself, regardless of location or prior access history. This model is particularly well-suited to the SEA startup context, where teams are distributed across geographies, infrastructure is predominantly cloud-based, and third-party integrations are ubiquitous. The Asia Pacific Zero Trust market was valued at US$20 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach US$102 billion by 2033, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 20 per cent. This is not a niche trend; it is the emerging baseline of enterprise security.

For startups, adopting Zero Trust principles early is not just a security decision — it is a scaling decision. As companies grow, the complexity of managing access, identities, and integrations multiplies. Building on a Zero Trust foundation means that security scales with the business rather than becoming a bottleneck.

The emerging cybersecurity startup ecosystem

One of the most encouraging developments in the SEA tech landscape is the emergence of a dedicated cohort of cybersecurity startups that are building the trust infrastructure the region needs. These companies are not simply reselling global security tools; they are building context-specific solutions that address the unique challenges of the SEA market — fragmented regulatory environments, high SME concentration, mobile-first user behaviour, and rapidly evolving threat vectors.

Also Read: In Southeast Asia, cybersecurity is booming but funding is not

This emerging ecosystem is remarkably diverse, addressing the full spectrum of trust and security challenges. In the digital identity space, startups are developing solutions for biometric verification, decentralised identity, and automated Know-Your-Customer (KYC) processes, which are fundamental for enabling trusted onboarding at scale for the region’s booming fintech and e-commerce sectors. Others are focused on application security, providing tools for mobile app hardening, secure code review, and API protection—capabilities that are critical for the integrity of super-apps and SaaS platforms.

To combat the ever-growing sophistication of attackers, a cohort of startups is leveraging AI for threat intelligence, offering advanced detection, threat hunting, and automated incident response services that help address the region’s significant cybersecurity talent gap. In parallel, a growing number of companies are tackling compliance and governance, building platforms for automated regulatory reporting, data privacy management, and audit readiness.

These tools are vital for startups looking to expand across borders and demonstrate a mature governance posture to investors. Finally, a crucial segment is dedicated to fraud prevention, using behavioural analytics, real-time transaction monitoring, and deepfake detection to protect consumer trust in digital financial services, which remains a primary target for cybercriminals.

This ecosystem is not merely defensive. Startups that help organisations embed trust, manage risk, and scale securely are forming a critical layer of the region’s digital stack. They are, in effect, the infrastructure providers of the trust economy.

The regulatory tailwind

Regulatory momentum is also aligning with this shift. Singapore’s amendments to its Cybersecurity Act in 2024 broadened coverage to essential services, while Malaysia’s Cyber Security Act 2024 introduced mandatory incident reporting and annual risk assessments for critical sectors. The ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), currently under negotiation, represents the world’s first regional agreement on digital economy governance, with cybersecurity and data protection among its central pillars.

Also Read: AI and cybersecurity in healthcare: Building resilience for better patient care

While regulatory fragmentation remains a challenge — Indonesia and the Philippines still lack dedicated cybersecurity legislation — the direction of travel is clear. Compliance is becoming a baseline expectation, and startups that build with regulatory readiness in mind will be better positioned to scale regionally without costly retrofits.

A trust layer for the next decade

Southeast Asia’s digital economy is at an inflection point. The next decade will be defined not just by the pace of digital adoption, but by the quality of the trust infrastructure that underpins it.

Consumers are becoming more sophisticated; they are making conscious choices about which platforms to trust with their data and their money. Investors are becoming more discerning; they are asking harder questions about security posture, incident response, and governance. Regulators are becoming more assertive; they are setting higher bars for compliance and accountability.

In this environment, cybersecurity is not a constraint on innovation — it is the condition for it. The startups that will define the next chapter of SEA’s digital economy will be those that treat security not as a feature to be added, but as a value to be embodied. They will be the companies that understand, at the deepest level, that in the digital economy, trust is the product.

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For years, flexible work in the Philippines was treated as a nice-to-have, the sort of employee benefit that sat somewhere between free coffee and mental health webinars. That era is over. In 2026, flexibility is no longer a cultural add-on. It is becoming a basic market condition for hiring, retention and even regional competitiveness.

According to the Philippines Talent Market Report 2026 by recruitment agency Monroe Consulting, 78 per cent of candidates now prefer hybrid or remote work, while 83 per cent say work-life balance is the main reason behind that preference. Yet 49 per cent of employers still believe full-time office work is the most effective model for their business. That gap is not just philosophical. It is increasingly expensive.

Also Read: Why remote working is the future for startups

In a country where commuting in Metro Manila can eat up hours a day, and where rising transport costs, extreme weather and infrastructure stress shape daily life, flexibility is not simply about convenience. It is about economics, resilience, and access to talent.

Manila’s commute problem has become a labour market problem

Any executive hiring in the Philippines already knows the dirty little secret of office-first policies: the job offer is evaluated not only by salary and title, but also by EDSA traffic, flood risk, transport costs, and the sheer unpredictability of getting home. For many professionals, especially mid-career talent with families, hybrid work functions like a wage supplement even when it does not appear on the payslip.

That is why the Monroe data matters. The report suggests that, even in a selective hiring environment where employers are more cautious, flexibility remains one of the few levers that can materially expand the candidate pool. Organisations that insist on rigid attendance models are not merely defending culture; they are also defending the status quo. They are shrinking supply in a market already short of experienced talent.

This has major implications beyond Metro Manila. The Philippines is an archipelago, and talent has never been distributed as neatly as office landlords might prefer. The same report shows that 75 per cent of respondents are based in Metro Manila. Still, the next layers of talent are visible in CALABARZON, Cebu, Davao, Pampanga, Baguio, Iloilo, and Bacolod. Hybrid and remote models allow companies to tap those pools without forcing every capable worker into the capital’s cost structure.

For startups, scale-ups and regional tech firms, that is a strategic opening. A Singapore-based company building in Southeast Asia does not need to think about the Philippines only as a Manila market. It can think in terms of distributed teams across talent nodes with different cost profiles, sector strengths and availability.

Flexibility is becoming a filtering mechanism for scarce skills

The Monroe report is particularly clear on one point: hiring is becoming more selective, not less competitive. That combination matters. When demand concentrates around digital, leadership, and highly specialised roles, the best candidates do not have to compromise on working arrangements. Employers do.

Also Read: Rethinking remote work: The engagement issue at the heart of work-from-home

This is especially visible in sectors where skills shortages are already acute. Technology, professional services, shared services, healthcare support, e-commerce, and data-related roles are increasingly shaped by candidates who benchmark not just locally but also regionally. Filipino professionals know they are competing in a more open market. Global employers know it too.

That makes flexibility less of an employee welfare issue and more of a commercial pricing issue. A company that offers a below-market salary but meaningful autonomy may still stay in the race. A company that offers market salary but demands rigid office presence may not.

This is one reason contract and project-based hiring are gaining traction. Monroe notes that employers are increasingly using fixed-term contracts, project roles, and temporary assignments to address skill gaps quickly without committing to permanent headcount. In the Philippines, where digital transformation programmes often move faster than formal workforce planning, flexible work and flexible hiring are becoming twin responses to the same constraint.

The productivity argument is losing its old force

One reason office-first thinking has persisted is the assumption that people are less productive when unseen. That argument is looking shakier. Monroe reports that roughly two-thirds of employers say their current work arrangements have either maintained or improved productivity. The tension, then, is no longer mainly about outcomes. It is about managerial comfort.

That distinction matters because businesses can solve for process, collaboration, and performance. They cannot solve for talent scarcity by wishing people back into long commutes.

The Philippines is also a market where organisational maturity varies sharply. Large enterprises, BPO operators, multinationals, and newer tech-led companies often have the systems to manage output and distributed teams. Traditional firms, by contrast, may still be navigating supervision through visibility. That creates a widening gap in employer attractiveness.

It also helps explain why cross-border employers are making inroads. If a skilled Filipino professional can work remotely for a regional company with better tools, stronger management practices, and clearer performance metrics, the local employer is no longer competing only with nearby offices in Makati or Bonifacio Global City. It is competing with the broader Asian labour market.

The real prize is not convenience. It is labour market reach

What makes the flexibility debate more consequential in the Philippines is that it intersects with several structural realities: a large English-speaking workforce, rising digital capabilities, strong services exports, and the growing willingness of companies to organise work across borders. In that environment, hybrid work is not just a human resources issue. It is a market-access issue.

Also Read: Why 2025 is a milestone year for startup funding in the Philippines

A rigid model can exclude parents, carers, workers outside central business districts, provincial specialists and people unwilling to pay the time-and-money tax of five-day office routines. A more flexible model can pull them all in. That is not ideology. It is labour supply arithmetic.

For the startup ecosystem, this is especially important. Southeast Asian firms often talk about talent shortages as if they are abstract. In the Philippines, the shortage is frequently self-inflicted. Employers are demanding a narrow labour profile in a country that could offer them a much broader one.

The hard truth is that flexibility has moved beyond symbolism. In the Philippines, it now shapes who applies, who stays, who relocates and who quietly rejects an offer before the first interview round is done.

Companies that still frame it as a perk are reading an old market map. The road has moved.

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The tech layoffs of 2025 were not distributed evenly across the globe. Instead, they were concentrated in specific geographic hubs, revealing a new map of economic vulnerability.

Data from UK-based forex company RationalFX shows that US-headquartered companies accounted for 69.7 per cent of all global tech layoffs, with California and Washington State bearing the brunt.

California: The epicentre of disruption

California remains the heart of the global tech industry, and consequently, its primary casualty. The state recorded 73,499 job cuts in 2025, accounting for roughly 43.08 per cent of all tech layoffs in the US. Silicon Valley’s heavyweights — including Intel, Salesforce, Meta, and HP — were the primary drivers of these redundancies.

Also Read: Big Tech’s efficiency paradox: Record profits, record layoffs

Washington State followed as the second-hardest hit hub, with 42,221 jobs lost. The state’s reliance on Microsoft and Amazon (which together cut nearly 40,000 roles) makes its local economy uniquely sensitive to the strategic shifts of just two corporate boards.

The rise of New York

Interestingly, New York State rapidly climbed the layoff rankings toward the end of the year, recording 26,900 job cuts. The vast majority of these were concentrated in New York City, which now accounts for 15.8 per cent of the US total. IBM was the single most significant contributor to New York’s woes, responsible for 9,000 redundancies in the state alone.

Europe’s fragile tech ambitions

Across the Atlantic, Ireland emerged as Europe’s most affected nation. This was primarily due to Accenture’s global restructuring, which saw 11,000 jobs cut from its Irish operations as part of its AI strategy. Other European players, such as Spain’s Telefónica, also contributed to the regional total by eliminating 7,000 roles late in the year.

However, the most symbolic failure in Europe was Northvolt’s collapse. The Swedish battery manufacturer, once hailed as Europe’s answer to Asian battery dominance, filed for bankruptcy in March 2025. The move left at least 3,000 employees jobless and underscored the difficulty Western firms face in competing with established manufacturing hubs in China, Japan, and South Korea.

The Asian shift

The RationalFX report highlights a stark geopolitical reality: while Europe and the US were shedding roles, battery production and high-end hardware manufacturing remained firmly centred in Asia.

Also Read: When tech titans blink: 2025 exposed the Old Guard’s fragility

As we look toward 2026, the geographic concentration of these layoffs suggests that the “tech hubs” of the past decade may be the most volatile places to work in the next one. The global workforce is being redrawn, and for now, the lines are being written in Silicon Valley and Seattle, but the consequences are being felt from Skellefteå to Bangalore.

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The full report can be accessed here.

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Southeast Asia’s food delivery landscape has entered a paradoxical era. While the total gross merchandise value (GMV) for the region surged by 18 per cent year-on-year to reach a staggering US$22.7 billion in 2025, the individual value of each order is actually shrinking. This shift marks a fundamental change in strategy for the region’s dominant players: Grab, ShopeeFood, and Gojek.

According to the 6th annual “Food Delivery Platforms in Southeast Asia” report by Momentum Works, platforms are now converging on affordability as their primary growth engine. This move is systematically driving average order values (AOVs) lower across every major market.

Also Read: How mobile marketing is powering the next phase of food delivery growth in Southeast Asia

In the early growth phases of the 2020s, platforms relied heavily on massive subsidies to acquire users across all price points. As the industry pivoted toward profitability in the early 2020s, those subsidies were slashed, and user bases narrowed to core, higher-spending segments.

However, the report indicates that growth pressure has returned in 2025, forcing platforms to look beyond their affluent core. The result is a renewed focus on “cost-first” consumers, who were previously priced out of the convenience economy.

The strategy of bundles and “saver” deliveries

The evidence of this convergence is visible in the product roadmaps of every major platform. Grab has aggressively rolled out its “GrabFood for One” and “Shared Saver” initiatives to reduce the entry price for single-person households. In Indonesia, Gojek (through GoFood) and Grab have both lowered the prices.

This isn’t just about vouchers; it’s about structural product changes. By introducing “saver” delivery options, where users accept longer wait times in exchange for lower fees, platforms are able to batch orders more efficiently, effectively lowering the cost-to-serve while capturing price-sensitive demand.

Thailand, the region’s second-largest market with a US$5.1 billion GMV, has seen the highest growth at 22 per cent, mainly driven by these affordability initiatives and the government’s “half-half” co-payment stimulus scheme.

A move toward mass adoption

The logic behind driving AOVs lower is to transform food delivery from an occasional luxury into an everyday habit for the mass market. Momentum Works estimates that between 8.5 million and 9.5 million food delivery orders are now fulfilled daily across Southeast Asia. To keep this number growing, platforms must unlock segments of the population that previously viewed US$5 to US$10 meals as too expensive.

However, this “race to the bottom” creates a challenging environment for merchants. While the report notes that order frequency is increasing as subscriptions and vouchers normalise repeat ordering, the downward pressure on pricing means restaurants must operate with extreme efficiency. Medium-sized merchants, in particular, are finding themselves squeezed as platforms use their vast datasets to influence pricing and promotional positioning.

The global benchmark

The shadow of China’s delivery market looms large over these developments. Meituan and Alibaba have spent over US$11 billion on subsidies during their domestic delivery wars, creating a market where more than 30 per cent of orders are now beverages. Southeast Asian platforms are selectively adopting China-inspired tactics, such as affordable bundled meals and prepaid vouchers, to defend their market share against potential entry by new, hyper-efficient competitors like Meituan’s Keeta.

Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms

As 2026 approaches, the success of a platform will no longer be measured by how much it can charge per order, but by how many millions of low-margin orders it can orchestrate through its ecosystem without breaking the unit economics of its delivery fleet.

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As businesses across Asia look to the future, generative AI (GenAI) rapidly emerges as a powerful driver of growth and innovation. Adobe’s 2025 AI and Digital Trends Asia snapshot offers a detailed examination of how regional organisations adopt GenAI and the challenges they face in turning promise into performance. More importantly, the report provides key recommendations for companies capitalising on GenAI’s transformative potential.

According to Adobe, Asian organisations see a broader return on investment from GenAI adoption than their counterparts in the wider Asia Pacific and Japan (JAPAC) region. Senior executives cite benefits such as freeing up resources for strategic initiatives (55 per cent) and boosting revenue through more effective marketing (53 per cent).

Additionally, businesses are applying GenAI across diverse functions, including optimising customer journeys (16 per cent), content creation (14 per cent), and customer support (14 per cent).

Despite these encouraging signs, a significant disconnect remains. Only six per cent of organisations in Asia report having GenAI solutions that deliver measurable ROI, a figure that is half the global average. This gap highlights a central challenge: while businesses recognise GenAI’s capabilities, they struggle to translate initial gains into sustained, quantifiable outcomes.

The foundation for GenAI success

A central theme in Adobe’s recommendations is the critical need for unified data. Fragmented data is one of the most significant barriers preventing organisations from achieving real-time personalisation and maximising GenAI’s effectiveness.

According to the report, 88 per cent of practitioners cite fragmented data as a key issue, while 42 per cent of senior executives acknowledge that disparate data siloes hinder AI’s full potential.

Also Read: From ADP to Bitcoin: How US economic indicators are shaping global financial landscapes

Privacy and security concerns compound these difficulties. With 43 per cent of executives identifying these concerns as top obstacles, many organisations hesitate to integrate customer data across functions. However, unifying data is not only about technological integration; it also requires addressing governance, compliance, and ethical considerations to build trust internally and with customers.

Recognising these challenges, 61 per cent of senior executives indicate that data integration and real-time insights will heavily influence their technology investment decisions over the next 12 to 24 months. Establishing a unified data foundation enables organisations to personalise customer experiences dynamically, optimise resource allocation, and ultimately derive measurable ROI from GenAI.

Adobe emphasises that effective GenAI adoption requires cross-functional collaboration. Ownership of the customer journey is often divided among marketing (33 per cent), customer success (17 per cent), customer experience (16 per cent), and IT (11 per cent). Without seamless coordination between these departments, GenAI initiatives risk becoming disjointed and inefficient.

By fostering collaboration, organisations can pool expertise, align objectives, and ensure that GenAI applications are integrated into broader business strategies. This cooperative approach is essential for addressing the complex, multi-faceted nature of GenAI projects, which often span data management, customer engagement, product development, and operational efficiency.

To bridge the gap between GenAI potential and measurable outcomes, Adobe recommends appointing a dedicated champion to oversee GenAI initiatives. This individual plays a pivotal role in uniting strategies, aligning cross-functional teams, and focusing on clear business objectives.

A GenAI champion provides leadership and accountability, ensuring that data unification, collaboration, and adoption strategies are executed cohesively. With centralised oversight, organisations can navigate the complexities of GenAI adoption more effectively, accelerating progress and mitigating the risk of stalled or fragmented initiatives.

Also Read: US-based RadNet acquires Singapore AI startup See-Mode to strengthen diagnostic capabilities

Adobe also advocates for early adoption of GenAI combined with a test-and-learn approach. Early adopters position themselves to gain first-mover advantages, refine their use cases through iterative learning, and build organisational expertise.

A test-and-learn mindset allows businesses to experiment with GenAI applications across various domains, evaluate outcomes, and adjust strategies accordingly. This agile approach not only minimises risk but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement, enabling organisations to adapt to evolving customer needs and market dynamics.

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Image Credit: Andrew Neel on Unsplash

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The artificial intelligence (AI) sector has surged into an era of unprecedented acceleration, marked by meteoric growth in usage and investment while grappling with staggering costs and intense international competition.

What initially emerged as scattered developments has morphed into a sophisticated, high-stakes ecosystem. Traditional monetisation strategies are being reinvented in real time, often at the expense of massive cash burn.

Layered on top of this is a growing geopolitical rivalry, particularly between the US and China, which is shaping the global AI landscape.

The speed of AI adoption and user engagement is now eclipsing the early internet boom, with machines advancing faster than human capabilities. This exponential growth is vividly reflected in skyrocketing capital expenditure (CapEx) trends that show no sign of plateauing.

Also Read: AI power shift: How geopolitics and innovation are rewriting global rules

Startups are fuelling the pace with aggressive product rollouts, capital raises, and innovation, while tech behemoths are reallocating their cash flows to artificial intelligence to maintain market dominance and ward off new entrants.

Capital and infrastructure surge powers AI boom

Massive user uptake: OpenAI’s ChatGPT exemplifies AI’s mainstream adoption, growing its weekly active users by over 200 per cent year-on-year to hit 350 million by December 2024. Since its launch, ChatGPT has seen an eightfold increase to 800 million users in just seventeen months.

Soaring CapEx among Big Tech: The so-called “Big Six” US tech firms (Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon (AWS), and Meta Platforms) pushed their collective CapEx up by more than 63 per cent year-on-year, totalling US$212 billion in 2024. This increase is largely driven by demand for AI model training and deployment infrastructure.

Data centres as AI factories: Data centre spending has surged to US$455 billion globally in 2024, with projections pointing to continued acceleration. These facilities are becoming “AI factories” as hyperscalers and AI-first companies invest billions to scale computational capacity.

Ecosystem expansion: The NVIDIA AI ecosystem has seen exponential growth: 6 million developers (up 2.4 times), 27,000 startups (up 3.9 times), and 4,000 GPU-enabled applications (up 2.4 times) by 2025.

Monetisation: A multi-pronged strategy

Consumer subscriptions lead the way: Flagship AI models such as ChatGPT, xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Perplexity are monetising primarily through subscription models for individual users.

API and generative search monetisation: Anthropic’s revenue soared more than 20 times to US$2 billion annually in eighteen months. Meanwhile, xAI’s generative search offerings are set to achieve significant revenue growth by 2025.

Enterprise-driven growth: Companies are embracing AI for top-line growth. Glean, which provides enterprise search and AI agents, grew its annual recurring revenue (ARR) more than 10 times to US$100 million within two years.

Integrated AI platforms: Incumbents are embedding AI across entire product suites. Microsoft’s AI division surpassed a US$13 billion annual revenue run rate in 2024, marking a 175 per cent increase. Its Copilot tool is being widely deployed across services. Meanwhile, TikTok has rolled out Symphony, a suite of AI-powered advertising tools.

Specialised AI software flourishes

Industry-specific AI applications are gaining traction:

Software engineering: Anysphere Cursor AI’s ARR surged from US$1 million to US$300 million in just over two years.

Legal services: Harvey hit US$75 million in ARR by April 2025.

Also Read: Southeast Asia steps up: Complexity, opportunity, and the post-China trade shift

Customer support: Decagon expanded its ARR tenfold in a single year, from US$1 million to US$10 million, reshaping customer service into AI management roles.

The cost of innovation: Burn rates and bottlenecks

Escalating expenses: Training frontier large language models (LLMs) is among the most capital-intensive ventures in history, with compute expenses running into the billions. OpenAI’s 2023 compute spend alone was estimated at US$5 billion.

Monetisation vs profitability: As inference costs per token decline, AI becomes more accessible. However, this brings uncertainty to monetisation models and casts doubt on long-term profitability for model providers.

High-burn dynamics: The prevailing equation in the AI world is “High Revenue + High Burn + High Valuation + High Investment”. Collectively, leading private AI model firms (OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and xAI) have raised approximately US$95 billion to date, against an estimated combined revenue of just US$11 billion annually as of May 2025.

Energy as a limiting factor: AI’s colossal energy demands are causing data centres to rival traditional heavy industries in consumption. The sector’s growth is increasingly constrained by energy availability, not data or algorithms, with grid strain becoming a critical bottleneck.

The geopolitical chessboard of AI

Open-source disruption: The proliferation of open-source AI is undermining proprietary monetisation strategies by enabling “frontier-level” innovation without billion-dollar budgets. This democratisation could commoditise certain capabilities, posing a threat to incumbents.

China’s rapid AI ascent: China is intensifying its AI efforts in strategically vital areas like battlefield logistics and autonomous systems. By Q2 2025, it had released three open-source LLMs and is closing the performance gap with US models at a remarkable pace, a stark contrast to its late adoption during the internet era.

Strategic tug-of-war: The US and China now view AI as both an economic engine and a geopolitical lever. American policymakers are tightening safeguards around advanced AI models, while China is focusing on original innovation, moving away from its earlier “freerider” approach.

Also Read: Southeast Asia’s AI divide: SleekFlow report warns of widening gap

As Microsoft Vice Chair Brad Smith warned, “this race between the US and China for international influence likely will be won by the fastest first mover.”

Outlook: Innovation unchained, but at a cost

The AI sector represents a collision of hypercapitalism, global ambition, and creative destruction. While consumers benefit from “better, faster, cheaper” solutions and developers gain access to advanced tools, the path to profitability remains fraught with complexity.

The genie is out of the bottle, and the global monetisation race is only just beginning.

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The image was generated using ChatGPT.

Source: “Trends-Artificial Intelligence” by BOND

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Netbank has concluded a Series B round led by Singapore-based Altara Ventures, betting that the next phase of Philippine fintech growth will be won not by the flashiest consumer app, but by the regulated banking plumbing underneath it.

The company did not disclose the size of the round. Existing backers BeeNext, Kaya Founders, January Capital, Oak Drive Ventures, and Boleh Ventures all participated again, a sign that investors are still willing to fund infrastructure plays in a market where compliance, bank integrations, and product rollouts remain painfully slow.

Netbank plans to use the new capital to deepen payments, lending, account, and card capabilities, while investing in automation, risk systems, and engineering.

Also Read: Security implications of embedded finance in non-financial platforms

The Philippines is becoming one of Southeast Asia’s more compelling proving grounds for embedded finance. Digital payments are rising fast, more services are moving into apps, and platforms from lenders to marketplaces increasingly want to offer financial products without becoming banks themselves. Netbank’s pitch is straightforward: let those businesses plug into regulated accounts, payments, cards, and lending through APIs, while Netbank handles the banking layer.

In plain English, it wants to be the bank in the background.

Why this round matters

The timing of the fundraise is notable. Across the region, fintech funding has become harder to secure, and investors have grown less patient with glossy growth stories unsupported by revenue. Netbank is leaning into the opposite message. It said revenue grew 88 per cent year on year in FY2025 and that it was profitable while expanding its accounts, payments and card-issuing products. That is a more credible story than the usual “land grab now, economics later” script.

Founder Gus Poston put it bluntly in the announcement, saying fintechs in the Philippines eventually “hit the same wall” when they need a bank that can move at startup speed. That line gets to the core of the opportunity. Building financial products in the country is not simply a design or distribution challenge; it is an infrastructure problem. Licensing, settlement, compliance and integrations still create friction that younger companies struggle to absorb.

Netbank is trying to monetise that bottleneck.

The Philippines is fertile ground for embedded banking

Embedded banking in the Philippines is growing as several forces converge.

First, digital payments are now mainstream rather than experimental. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (central bank) data shows digital payments accounted for 52.8 per cent of retail payment transactions by volume in 2023, up sharply from 42.1 per cent in 2022 and just 20.1 per cent in 2018. Once consumers and businesses are already paying digitally, it becomes much easier to layer on accounts, credit, cards, payroll tools, and disbursements inside the same platforms.

Second, the country still has a deep access gap. Formal account ownership has improved, but millions of Filipinos and small businesses remain underserved by traditional banks, especially outside major urban centres. Embedded finance works well in markets like this because it delivers financial services through apps people already use, rather than forcing them to start at a bank branch.

Third, small businesses need capital and better collection tools. The Philippines has a large MSME base, yet access to working capital remains uneven. That creates room for platforms to embed lending, merchant settlement, and cash management services directly into the software used by sellers, gig workers, and service providers.

Also Read: Why embedded finance is critical to Southeast Asia’s digital future

Fourth, regulation has become more enabling. The central bank has aggressively pushed digitisation, while open finance and instant payment rails are making it easier for licensed players to build new products without recreating the stack each time.

Who Netbank is targeting

Netbank sells to businesses that want to embed financial services into their own products. That includes fintech startups, lending platforms, remittance operators, payroll and HR software providers, marketplaces, vertical SaaS companies, and other digital platforms that need regulated accounts, real-time disbursements, collections, cards or credit rails without building bank partnerships from scratch.

Its value proposition is strongest for companies that are growing quickly but do not want the pain of stitching together one provider for payments, another for KYC, another for cards and still another for lending infrastructure. A licensed bank with modular APIs can reduce that complexity.

Netbank said its active partner base expanded substantially in FY2025, but did not disclose the exact number of companies it has partnered with to date. That omission is frustrating, though not unusual for infrastructure startups that prefer to talk in terms of volume and revenue rather than customer counts.

How Netbank makes money

Like other banking-as-a-service and embedded finance providers, Netbank’s revenue model is likely a mix of recurring platform income and transaction-based fees.

That typically includes:

• fees on payment processing, disbursements and collections;
• account-related charges for white-labelled banking products;
• card economics such as interchange and programme fees;
• lending income through origination, servicing or balance-sheet participation; and
• custom integration or enterprise service fees for larger partners.

Because Netbank operates on a banking licence, it can do more than a pure software middleware player. That should give it more ways to monetise each partner relationship, especially as partners expand from payments into cards and credit.

The competitive field is getting busier

Netbank may be unusual in positioning itself as an embedded finance platform running on a banking licence, but it is not building in an empty lane.

In the Philippines, Brankas is one of the best-known names in open finance and API-led banking infrastructure. UBX, the fintech arm of UnionBank, has also built rails for digital financial services and ecosystem partnerships. Large digital banks and financial super-apps, such as Maya, are increasingly building more extensible infrastructure, even if their models differ from Netbank’s.

On the financing side, players including BillEase, UnaCash, Cashalo, and Atome have helped normalise embedded credit inside merchant and checkout flows. They are not direct like-for-like competitors to Netbank’s full-stack banking infrastructure model, but they do shape customer expectations around instant, in-app finance.

That is the broader point: embedded finance in the Philippines is no longer a niche concept. Consumers already encounter it at checkout, in wallets, in salary-linked products and in merchant apps. The next battle is over who supplies the rails.

Where the sector is headed

The space is moving away from simple payment integrations and towards full-stack embedded banking. That means more demand for real-time collections and disbursements, embedded cards, sector-specific credit, cross-border payment rails, and compliance automation that can survive closer regulatory scrutiny.

Also Read: Embedded finance will drive financial growth and sustainability in India

It also means the winners may look less like pure software startups and more like regulated infrastructure businesses with defensible economics.
Altara’s Dave Ng said a regional gap remains in “dependable financial infrastructure”. That is the investment thesis in one sentence. Southeast Asia does not lack fintech ideas; it lacks enough reliable back-end systems to support them at scale.

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Igloo, the Singapore‑headquartered insurtech building an insurance “Operating System” for Southeast Asia, has appointed Ramjit Lahiri as Country Head for the Philippines as it moves from embedded distributor to full‑stack infrastructure provider in one of its fastest‑growing markets.

The move signals an acceleration of a playbook that mixes deep platform partnerships and white‑label technology, a combination Igloo says will be crucial to closing the Philippines’s yawning protection gap and lifting insurance penetration from single‑digit levels. The substance, however, will rest on whether Igloo can translate platform reach into meaningful coverage for the Philippines’s informal workers, micro‑entrepreneurs, and climate‑vulnerable communities.

Also Read: MSIG takes stake in Ancileo to win Asia’s travel insurance battle

Rapid scale, limited penetration

Igloo reports more than 40 platform partners in the Philippines and over 55 tailored insurance products. Its recent tie‑up with motorcycle ride‑hailing operator Angkas highlights the model: personal accident cover worth PHP 650,000 (about US$11,500) and medical coverage of PHP 200,000 (about US$3,540) for more than 20,000 riders, at a minimum premium of PHP 1 (roughly US$0.02) per ride.

Those headline numbers sit against an insurance market that is expanding but remains shallow. Total premiums in the Philippines reached PHP 502.6 billion in 2025 (roughly US$8.9 billion), up 14.1 per cent year on year, according to the Philippine Insurance Commission. Yet insurance penetration has only inched up to between 1.78 per cent and 1.79 per cent of GDP, still beneath the regulator’s 2 per cent target and trailing most ASEAN peers.

GlobalData estimates a catastrophe protection gap of around 98 per cent in the Philippines, versus a global average of 58 per cent. That combination, rapid premium growth but low penetration and huge protection shortfalls, is the opportunity Igloo is betting on.

“This is one of the largest protection gaps in Southeast Asia, and also one of the most digitally engaged populations in the world,” Lahiri said. “The answer is to plug insurance into consumer‑facing apps, platforms, and financial services Filipinos already trust, and to make that experience as simple as buying a top‑up. That is what Igloo’s technology does, and that is what we will scale aggressively in 2026.”

What’s driving insurance growth in the Philippines

Several structural factors explain the dichotomy of strong premium growth and persistently low penetration:

Also Read: PolicyStreet’s US$21M raise signals a shift from insurtech hype to infrastructure reality

• Digital platform adoption: Widespread smartphone use, growing e‑wallet penetration, and entrenched platforms such as GCash, Shopee, and Lazada provide ready distribution channels for low‑ticket, embedded products.
• Rising middle‑class consumption: More Filipinos buying goods and services online creates cross‑sell opportunities for simple protection products.
• Regulatory momentum: The Insurance Commission’s 2 per cent penetration target and supportive policies for bancassurance and digital distribution create tailwinds.
• Acute climate and disaster risk: Frequent typhoons and floods raise demand for catastrophe and climate‑linked products, though supply and affordability remain barriers.
• Gig economy expansion: Millions of drivers, riders, and micro‑entrepreneurs need tailored, affordable protection, and platforms offer an obvious point of sale.

Igloo’s strategy of platform integration, micro‑premiums, and rapid product configuration through its tech stack is explicitly designed to exploit those drivers.

Lahiri’s playbook: marketplaces, finance, and productisation

Lahiri arrives with more than a decade of experience building digital marketplaces and finance partnerships across emerging markets, most recently as CEO of Carmudi Philippines, where he led the creation of an auto financial services marketplace. Before that, he headed operations at Lamudi Philippines and held commercial leadership at OYO Philippines and Treebo Hotels in India. He started his career as a software engineer.

Those experiences matter for three reasons.

• Distribution partnerships: At Carmudi and Lamudi Lahiri forged relationships with banks, non‑bank lenders and OEMs to make financing accessible to previously underserved segments. Igloo needs the same commercial muscle to place insurance into e‑wallets, banks and telco wallets.
• Product tailoring and pricing: Building vehicle finance marketplaces requires granular risk segmentation and pricing models, the same disciplines needed to break down catastrophe and gig‑worker risk into affordable products.
• Operational scaling: Marketplace success depends on integrations, reconciliation and operational controls. Igloo’s pitch is that its modular tech compresses product launch cycles; Lahiri’s operations background should help translate that promise into volume and service reliability.

“Ramjit’s experience building digital marketplaces backed by deep financial services partnerships is exactly what we need to lead this next phase,” Igloo co‑founder and CEO Raunak Mehta said. “Over the next two to three years, we expect rapid scale in the Philippines, and we will continue rolling out AI‑powered features that make insurance faster, more accurate, and more accessible.”

Igloo’s regional footprint and performance

Igloo says its proprietary platform processes over 80 million policies per month across six Southeast Asian markets and has facilitated more than 1.6 billion policies to date. The company lists operations in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and technology centres in China and India.

Also Read: Poni’s Cassandra Wee on why the most meaningful insurtech innovation will not come from operating in silo

In markets where Igloo has been active longer, its approach has produced scale through embedded products: low‑ticket travel, accident and device protection sold via e‑commerce checkout flows, telco top‑ups, and ride‑hailing platforms. Those markets have seen faster micro‑product adoption, though profitability metrics and loss ratios remain opaque from the outside.

Igloo’s announced commercial partners include Shopee, Lazada, Tokopedia, GCash, and Telkomsel, along with insurer partners such as Chubb and MSIG. The firm has also raised over US$100 million from investors, including Eurazeo, Openspace Ventures, and Tokio Marine, signalling investor confidence in its growth trajectory.

Regional insurance growth and the competitive landscape

Across Southeast Asia, insurance is growing at a healthy clip but from low bases. Digital distribution, bancassurance expansion, and regulatory encouragement have driven double‑digit premium growth in several markets, while insurtechs and incumbents race to embed simple products into payments and commerce flows. Climate risk is also forcing new product innovation, from parametric covers to layered catastrophe solutions.

Key rivals and alternatives in the Southeast Asian insurtech landscape include:

• Bolt‑on and platform players: In‑house platforms from e‑commerce giants and big telcos that build proprietary insurance stacks.
• Local insurtechs: Companies, such as PasarPolis (Indonesia), Qoala (Indonesia, regional), and Singlife (Singapore) that offer embedded or digital insurance products.
• Global MGA and tech vendors: White‑label providers and managing general agents partnering with local carriers.
• Traditional insurers modernising digitally: Incumbents such as AIA, Prudential, Chubb, and MSIG, who are increasingly investing in APIs, partnerships and digital channels.

Igloo’s differentiator is its claim to own a full‑stack, AI‑enabled technology layer that automates product configuration, underwriting, and claims adjudication. But in practice, winning requires deep local partners, cost‑efficient distribution economics, and product trust — areas where both incumbents and nimble local startups will press hard.

The road ahead: gig work, climate cover and credibility

Igloo’s 2026 priorities in the Philippines read as pragmatic and necessary: expand coverage for gig workers and micro‑entrepreneurs, build climate and catastrophe‑linked protection, and position its tech as the go‑to infrastructure for insurers launching products locally.

Success will depend on three tests.

• First, can Igloo keep premiums affordable while managing adverse selection and claims costs for high‑risk cohorts like riders?
• Second, can it convert platform reach into repeat engagement and durable customer relationships, rather than one‑off, low‑margin transactions?
• Third, can regulators, insurers and consumers trust an embedded model where distribution, technology, and underwriting are increasingly intertwined?

For now, Igloo is placing its bet on distribution — embedding low‑cost protection where Filipinos already transact — and on a leader whose history sits at the intersection of marketplaces and finance. If the company can convert platform scale into meaningful protection for those most exposed to disaster and income volatility, the Philippines could be one of the region’s most consequential battlegrounds for insurtech innovation.

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Salmon Group, a tech-driven financial company building a banking and lending platform across Southeast Asia, has secured US$100 million in a dual-tranche financing round, the company announced on Monday. The transaction was significantly oversubscribed, signalling strong investor conviction in Salmon’s growth story within one of the region’s most dynamic consumer finance markets.

The round is structured across two components: a US$60 million equity raise and a US$40 million public bond issuance—a configuration that reflects the company’s maturing capital strategy as it scales operations in the Philippines.

The equity tranche was led by Spice Expeditions and drew participation from Washington University Investment Management Company (WUIMC), Moore Strategic Ventures, FJ Labs, and a number of existing Salmon investors.

Proceeds will be deployed to accelerate product expansion, deepen Salmon’s distribution network across the Philippines, strengthen the capitalisation of Salmon Bank, and grow the group’s overall balance sheet capacity.

Pavel Fedorov, co-founder of Salmon Group, said in a press statement that the raise validates the company’s long-term vision. “This round is validation of what we have been building—an always-on bank and financial services super-app for every Filipino, run with discipline and a long-term mindset,” he said.

Also Read: From policy to capital: How development banks are driving the climate x health agenda

Fedorov highlighted that the Salmon App holds a 4.8-star rating on both the App Store and Google Play and maintains 99.9 per cent uptime. He added that Salmon Credit offers a grace period of up to 62 days and Salmon Bank provides an eight per cent term deposit rate, describing these as among the most competitive offers available in the market.

Alongside the equity component, Salmon Group issued US$40 million in public bonds priced at an effective yield of 13.7 per cent, within its existing US$150 million Nordic bond programme. The offering was placed with leading global fixed income investors and was executed during a period of heightened global capital market volatility, a context that makes the successful execution particularly notable. Bond proceeds will support the continued scaling of Salmon’s lending portfolio.

Why the dual-tranche structure makes strategic sense

The Philippines presents a compelling backdrop for Salmon’s expansion. The country has a large underbanked population and is experiencing rapid digital adoption of financial services. In just three years of operations, Salmon—which holds a BSP-licensed bank and an SEC-licensed financing company—has positioned itself as a challenger to legacy banks, emphasising customer experience, speed of execution, and product quality.

For a growth-stage fintech such as Salmon, the combination of equity and public debt is more than a financing convenience. It is a structural advantage that addresses the specific limitations of traditional venture capital as a sole funding mechanism.

Conventional VC rounds provide equity capital and signal market confidence, but they also dilute founders and early investors, and they are typically sized to runway rather than to the asset-generating needs of a lending business. Salmon is not simply a software company; it is building a balance sheet. Every loan disbursed requires funded capital. Equity alone, particularly at growth-stage valuations, is an expensive way to fund a lending book.

Also Read: Igloo appoints Ramjit Lahiri to lead high-stakes Philippines expansion

The US$40 million bond tranche directly resolves this tension. By accessing public debt markets through the Nordic bond program—a structure common among Nordic and emerging-market financial issuers—Salmon can grow its lending portfolio without further diluting shareholders. The 13.7 per cent yield reflects both the risk profile of an emerging-market fintech and the current interest rate environment, but it also benchmarks Salmon’s credit quality to institutional fixed-income investors who conduct independent due diligence.

The dual-tranche model also diversifies Salmon’s funding base across investor types and time horizons. Equity investors take long-duration, high-upside positions. Bond investors take shorter-duration, yield-oriented positions. Together, they create a more resilient capital structure, one less vulnerable to a single funding channel drying up, whether due to VC sentiment shifts or credit market disruptions.

For fintech companies operating in lending-intensive verticals, this hybrid approach is increasingly recognised as best practice. It mirrors the capital structures of more mature financial institutions while retaining the agility of a venture-backed company. The oversubscription of both tranches suggests that institutional markets—both equity and debt—are beginning to treat Salmon not merely as a startup, but as a credible financial institution in its own right.

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Image Credit: Salmon

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In the high-stakes world of enterprise software, a new rumor is sending ripples through IT departments from Singapore to Silicon Valley. Reports suggest that leadership within Microsoft, including Executive VP Rajesh Jha, may be exploring a radical shift in how the company extracts value from its software: moving from billing strictly per “human user” to a model that includes “AI agents” as billable entities.

While framed as a forward-looking AI strategy, industry skeptics are asking a tougher question: Is this a visionary move, or a sign of a giant feeling the heat of a changing kitchen?

The “agent” inflation

The proposed strategy suggests that as MS Copilot takes over more tasks, these “digital workers” should be counted alongside human staff in licensing agreements. On paper, it’s a logical evolution of the “Copilot” metaphor. In practice, it feels like a tactical move to bolster a stagnating seat count.

For the better part of two decades, Microsoft has maintained its grip on the corporate world through the Windows ecosystem and a formidable vendor lock-in strategy. But as enterprise clients become more cloud-agnostic and AI-savvy, the old tricks are losing their magic. If the massive $13 billion investment in OpenAI doesn’t result in a vertical spike in productivity soon, Microsoft may be forced to innovate its billing department faster than its engineering department.

Also read: The architecture of atrophy: Why MS Copilot’s reliance on the LLM wrapper model led to its 2026 stagnation

The pressure of the OpenAI bet

The industry consensus is shifting. The initial “wow factor” of GPT-integrated tools is facing the cold reality of corporate ROI. Many organizations find that while MS Copilot is a helpful assistant, it hasn’t yet delivered the “technological breakthrough” promised to justify its premium cost.

This has led to whispers that Redmond is in a quiet “panic mode.” When a flagship investment doesn’t immediately “steer the ship” toward a new era of dominance, the fallback is often to squeeze more from the existing user base. By charging for “agents,” Microsoft could theoretically multiply its revenue without adding a single new human customer.

A string of bad luck

The timing of these pricing rumors couldn’t be more awkward. Following recent high-profile service disruptions—including the much-discussed Outlook connectivity issues that plagued teams during high-stakes aerospace simulations—Microsoft’s image as the “unshakable foundation” of enterprise is wobbling.

When your core tools face reliability questions, asking clients to pay for “AI agents” on top of human licenses starts to look less like a strategy and more like a gamble. The “viral” nature of these criticisms on professional networks suggests that the enterprise world is losing its patience.

Also read: Navigating the new era of brand mention tracking and AI visibility in Singapore

The clock is ticking

Microsoft’s reliance on its legacy ecosystem has served it well, but the “lock-in” is no longer an unbreakable chain. Competitive pressure from agile, AI-native startups and open-source alternatives is mounting.

If the “human + AI agent” model is indeed the path forward, Microsoft must prove it’s offering genuine value, not just a creative way to pad the invoice. Enterprise clients are looking for a reason to stay, but with little perceived “breakthrough” tech in recent years, the window to course-correct is narrowing.

Microsoft has long been the master of the “safe” choice. But as the “heat” rises, the question remains: Can they innovate their way out of this, or will they simply try to charge for the air in the room?

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