AI adoption reshapes marketing across Southeast Asia

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The State of AI in Marketing 2026 report was released by the Marketing + Media Alliance (MMA) and Decision Lab on July 15, mapping how far AI has moved into the marketing operating model across Southeast Asia. The findings draw on an online survey of 143 MMA members across five markets: Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore, conducted between January and April 2026.

Marketing in Southeast Asia has moved past the experimental phase of AI. Advanced adopters, the organisations at Stage 3 (Early Adoption) and Stage 4 (Expansion), now account for 57 per cent of the market, and 80 per cent of organisations include AI in their marketing plans at a moderate level or higher. Only 4 per cent remain at the Awareness stage. Adoption now functions as the price of entry to the market, no longer a source of advantage for the few. The open question is no longer whether to adopt, but how deeply to integrate.

What separates the leaders is the number of functions scaled at the same time. Media allocation and measurement are where AI converts into commercial decisions, which is where the advantage of advanced adopters is hardest to close. Organisations that stop at scaling content are leaving the larger prize in insight and media decisions unclaimed.

Rohit Dadwal, CEO MMA Global Asia Pacific and global head of Smarties Worldwide, said, “This is where advanced adopters are pulling ahead. Their advantage comes less from owning more tools than from a scaled application across use cases, functions, and decision points. They are turning disciplined micro-actions into macro-impact.”

The real constraint on the next phase for marketers in the region is organisational capability. Skills and training are the challenge marketers name most often when integrating AI, at 78 per cent, and 34 per cent go further and say AI is not yet effectively understood inside their organisation. Advanced adopters are turning that concern into action, with 63 per cent already running AI training programmes for their marketing teams, against 36 per cent among early adopters.

Risk governance follows the same pattern. The risk marketers worry about most is data privacy, at 62 per cent, and awareness of the ethical implications of AI reaches 83 per cent among advanced adopters against 62 per cent among early adopters. Governance has not kept pace with that awareness, with only 44 per cent of advanced organisations holding a formal AI risk strategy and the figure falling to 21 per cent among early adopters. Recognising a risk and being ready to manage it are two different capabilities, and most organisations still hold only the first.

Investment plans for 2026 show the leaders across Southeast Asia moving to extend their lead. Advanced organisations expecting a budget increase reach 42 per cent, made up of 18 per cent expecting a significant rise and 24 per cent a moderate one, against 29 per cent among early adopters. Fewer of the leaders plan to hold budgets flat, at 26 per cent among advanced organisations against 34 per cent among early adopters.

The leaders' expected budget growth gives them greater capacity to reinvest in AI capability, and the gap with organisations holding budgets flat through 2026 may widen further. Adoption has become the baseline across Southeast Asia, and the report points to depth of integration as the factor separating the leaders from the rest.

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