Spending the last several months in Southeast Asia allowed me to expand my comprehension of the global market dynamics in times of uncertainty. And bridging global expansion with vibrant hubs, AI exponential adoption and market opportunities closely, I noticed that every market report eventually produces numbers that get quoted everywhere and questioned nowhere.
So, as I always dig deeper than the surface level, I am bringing to you some insights of my experience across SEA markets and the link with Google’s newly released Gemini Report: Southeast Asia 2026.
Two different kinds of “#1”
My first reaction when learning that Singapore is leading the highest AI adoption per capita globally was similar to an unamused emoji; since it is obvious that a market with high internet infrastructure and a ~6M population will get to the top of per capita ranks. I even ran a comparison with top markets of my dominance to see whether that would be applicable. And the results tell us a lot of interesting outputs.
In terms of AI Adoption rate per capita, the UAE ranks #1, which is a very similar market to Singapore when it comes to Internet infrastructure and penetration. A similar vision to embed AI into everyday life and successfully doing so.
The difference though, is what made Singapore’s stats interesting to me. The UAE has government adoption as the primary source of adopting AI. The position is largely the product of national strategy: sustained government investment in compute infrastructure, sovereign model development, and top-down digital policy.
In Singapore, the government mandate is also strong, though it is the population that is the driving force behind adoption: a daily behaviour that, on average, shows that Singaporeans prompt Gemini nearly 10 times per day, becoming #1 in the SEA region on daily engagement.
In this regard, that is an impressive metric to show how the market is embedding AI as part of everyone’s lives.
Also Read: Where AI money is made, and where SEA founders should actually compete
And comparing metrics on a superficial level misleads decision making because neither figure is wrong — they’re measuring two different growth models, and the distinction is the useful part.
That’s the distinction I look for in any market I work in: is growth being built by policy, or is it being built by user habit?
The two require completely different partnership and go-to-market approaches, and combining them is one of the common mistakes companies do in comparing markets to expand.
SEA region resists a single narrative
The stats reinforce something I’ve long believed about economic blocs specifically: A region with fragmented reality full of cultural and market nuances that influence behavior, consumption and opportunities. Similar to the Middle East, Africa and LATAM.
How interesting to see that AI adoption takes shape according to market dynamics. Knowing that in the Philippines women account for two-thirds of all micro, small, and medium enterprises, and that they heavily drive neighbourhood economies through home-based ventures, AI tools that help them scale while keeping a lean structure are key for their multi-faceted entrepreneurial journey. Hence, Philippines is the only country in the region where female users are the majority.
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In Indonesia, 82 per cent of prompts come from mobile, a pattern that is above SEA’s market average. It reflects the emerging reality of individuals transiting places, having challenging infrastructure and being creative in several ways to make their living.
Talking about creative ways, a standout pattern comes from Malaysia, where I have been fortunate to spend most of my time in the past months. Collectively, the SEA region accounts for over 5 billion images generated in the past 12 months, and Malaysia leads the rank as 1 in 5 users ask Gemini to generate images. To me, it makes a lot of sense – Malaysia has shown to me how vibrant, colourful and full of life, the country is.
These stats are simply different expressions of how each market is engaging with the same technology, shaped by local digital habits, language, and economic structure. That’s precisely the kind of nuance that gets lost when companies treat “Southeast Asia” as a single go-to-market target rather than a set of markets with their own logic.
Why this matters for your international expansion journey
I find this kind of comparative reading useful well beyond AI adoption. It’s the same discipline I apply when comparing opportunities across emerging markets and global hubs: look past the ranking, understand what’s actually driving the number, and never assume one market’s growth story explains another’s.
For companies planning their expansion and go-to-market strategies — whether from Asia, the Gulf, Europe, or the Americas — that distinction between policy-driven and habit-driven growth is often the difference between a market-entry plan that works and one that just looks good in a slide deck.
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