Southeast Asia is emerging as a global leader in artificial intelligence adoption, with the Gemini AI assistant experiencing rapid growth and deep user engagement across the region. A new report indicates that consumer interest in AI within Southeast Asia is three times higher than the global average, positioning the region at the forefront of AI innovation and usage.
Gemini’s Rapid Ascent in Southeast Asia
According to the Gemini Report: Southeast Asia 2026, Gemini has seen faster adoption in the region than any other Google application. The AI assistant is now the most searched-for AI assistant in Thailand, underscoring its significant penetration into daily life. Sapna Chadha, a representative for Google Southeast Asia and South Asia Frontier, highlighted this trend, stating, “Southeast Asia is not just keeping up with AI, but is setting the pace, with consumer interest in the region three times higher than the global average.”
Globally, Gemini serves over 900 million users across 70 languages. However, its growth in Southeast Asia has been particularly explosive. The number of active Gemini app users in the region has more than doubled in the past year, making it Google’s fastest-growing app in Southeast Asia. User engagement is also intensifying, with individuals returning to the platform 50% more frequently and doubling the number of prompts they submit. This deepening engagement suggests users are finding significant and ongoing value in the AI’s capabilities.
User Engagement Patterns
The way users interact with Gemini reveals key trends. Approximately 75% of requests originate from mobile devices, a pattern largely driven by younger users, often referred to as “native AI users.” These users tend to engage in extended, complex problem-solving conversations rather than relying on simple, quick queries, pushing the boundaries of what the technology can achieve.
Samuele Saini, director for Google Ads Solutions & Insights in Southeast Asia, categorized user engagement with Gemini into three primary dimensions: the user’s objective (the “why”), the nature of the output (the “what”), and the specific Gemini capability utilized (the “how”).
- Generative Collaboration: Around 40% of prompts involve using Gemini as a creative partner to generate new text, music, images, and videos.
- Research Assistance: Approximately 20% of users leverage Gemini as a research assistant to gather and synthesize information, benefiting from real-time integration with Google Search and Workspace.
- Thought Partnership: Another 10% utilize Gemini as a sounding board for brainstorming and troubleshooting through two-way conversations.
The creative output from Gemini users in the region has been substantial. Since August 2025, users have generated over 5 billion images. Furthermore, within just one month of its music generation model’s launch, users created more than 1 million songs. Multimodal interactions, which involve voice, photos, or videos, account for over 40% of all interactions, with voice-only conversations making up more than 10% of the total.
Country-Specific Adoption and Use Cases
Gemini’s adoption across Southeast Asia is marked by diverse and country-specific use cases, reflecting the unique needs and preferences of each market.
- Indonesia: Leads the region in sheer volume, generating 9 million daily custom ideas, largely driven by mobile and voice inputs.
- Singapore: Boasts the highest per capita adoption globally. Usage patterns have shifted from weekday technical debugging to weekend lifestyle planning.
- Philippines: Stands out as the only market with a majority-female user base. Users frequently employ AI for academic, creative, and business process outsourcing-related tasks.
- Malaysia: Dominates in visual creativity, showing the highest share of image generation. Interactions in the Malay language have doubled over the past year.
Language and Lifestyle in Thailand
Language plays a crucial role in AI interaction, with seven out of ten prompts in the region being submitted in local languages, primarily Vietnamese, Thai, and Bahasa Indonesia. Saranee Boonritthongchai, director for Southeast Asia & South Asia Frontier Consumer Marketing, noted this trend.
Thailand exhibits a particularly strong preference for its native language, with 87% of Gemini prompts written in Thai, the second-highest share among local languages. While English remains the preferred language for professional tasks and coding, Thai is the dominant language for academic and casual topics. Thailand is also the leading market for using Gemini for lifestyle-related queries, with one in three prompts falling into this category.
Gemini’s popularity in Thailand is inclusive, appealing to both young, tech-savvy individuals and a growing segment of digitally active seniors, sometimes referred to as the “silver gen boom.” These seniors often use voice commands and photo analysis for tasks like shopping. Creative pursuits are also highly popular, accounting for one in four prompts, with female users driving this trend by using AI for creative tasks 50% more than men.
Young users under 25 are the most active demographic in Thailand, submitting more requests per user and engaging in longer conversations with Gemini. Notably, older Thais aged 55 and above, who constitute 10% of the local user base, demonstrate a high adoption rate of multimodal inputs, frequently using voice and image prompts. This represents the highest senior multimodal adoption rate in the entire region.
Further validating Gemini’s performance, a study by the think tank AI Singapore, the Southeast Asia Holistic Evaluation of Language Models, identified Gemini as the top-performing large language model for Southeast Asian languages.
The Future of Gemini in Southeast Asia
Google is committed to democratizing AI across Southeast Asia through initiatives like the Gemini Academy, which aims to enhance digital literacy among students, teachers, and small and medium-sized businesses. A notable partnership with True Corporation in Thailand provides youth with tailored AI training and free internet access.
The Gemini app itself has undergone a significant redesign with a new visual language called “Neural Expressive.” Additionally, Gemini Omni, a multimodal feature, has been introduced to assist content creators, particularly in Singapore, with video and custom avatar creation and editing.
Looking ahead, Gemini is set to integrate secure, permission-based AI agents directly into applications like Gmail and Google Photos to automate information retrieval. Two key features are emerging from this integration: Daily Brief, which provides a personalized morning digest by analyzing inboxes and calendars, and Gemini Spark, a 24/7 assistant designed to take actions on behalf of the user, such as monitoring credit card statements or tracking deadlines. Gemini Spark is currently rolling out in English for Ultra subscribers and will soon support local Southeast Asian languages, with plans for broader availability.
In markets such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, users can now seamlessly transition from brainstorming to browsing within the chat interface, accessing shoppable product listings, comparison tables, and real-time pricing information from across the web.
