Indonesians Use AI More for Image-Making Than Work

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — Businesses in Indonesia are making very limited use of AI. Most AI tokens in the country are consumed by individual users, particularly to create image content.

According to the eConomy SEA 2026 report released by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company, generative AI adoption across six South-east Asian countries has grown rapidly in just three years. The number of AI users has exceeded 243 million, or around 58 per cent of the region’s working-age population.

The main factor driving adoption of generative AI technologies such as Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude in South-east Asia is their availability. Various chatbots can be accessed free of charge for certain functions and used for a range of needs, from work to entertainment.

Despite rapid growth in adoption, people in South-east Asia use AI relatively little. Per-capita AI token consumption in the region is only around 10 per cent of the US level, where it reaches 60 per cent.

The region’s low token use is attributable to limited adoption of AI by businesses, except in Malaysia and Singapore.

In Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, 80–85 per cent of AI use is for consumer activities. Businesses account for just 15–20 per cent of tokens used. By contrast, businesses account for 60 per cent of AI use in Singapore and 55 per cent in Malaysia.

The eConomy SEA 2026 report also highlights Indonesians’ tendency to use Gemini for creative activities. Around 32 per cent of the content Gemini generates for users in Indonesia is images, amounting to about nine million images a day.

In Singapore, meanwhile, AI use is dominated by everyday work. Singaporeans send Gemini an average of 10 prompts a day, mostly for professional, academic and coding activities.