AI Adoption by Indonesian Companies Hampered by Data Infrastructure Issues

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) by companies in Indonesia remains hampered by data infrastructure that is not yet ready to process data in real-time and autonomously. This finding was revealed in the 2026 Data Streaming Report released by Confluent.

Survey results from 4,475 IT leaders across 14 countries show that Indonesia’s AI ambitions actually surpass the Asia-Pacific regional average. A total of 83% of Indonesian respondents reported having implemented agentic AI solutions in production or pilot stages, higher than the Asia-Pacific average of 75%. Despite this, four major data-related challenges remain significant obstacles.

Confluent Area Vice President for Asia, Rully Moulany, explained that this data infrastructure problem is a classic issue encountered in various countries. “70-80% of respondents say their problems are not far from data. So 8 out of 10 say they do not have an infrastructure that can process data,” Rully said during a media roundtable in Jakarta on Wednesday (29/7/2026).

Beyond processing issues, the fragmentation of data ownership and the AI skills gap are also hindering the acceleration of adoption. Data quality is also considered crucial to prevent AI systems from producing hallucinations or inaccurate information. “Data lineage means that when AI receives data, the AI engine must know whether the data can be trusted or not. The data must not come from an unreliable source, so it is not inaccurate,” Rully explained.

He stressed the importance of resolving these obstacles as technology integration begins to be applied on a wider scale. “So when we implement AI scalably, more massively, these are the problems that really must be addressed,” he added.

To overcome these barriers, respondents view data streaming technology as a solution to support more reliable, contextual, and accessible AI performance. As many as 99% of IT leaders in Indonesia place data streaming as a priority investment, with 74% of them having already implemented such platforms in business-critical systems. “Of course, it goes both ways; when they invest in data streaming, the impact of their AI automatically increases,” Rully concluded.