Southeast Asia digital economy to hit $368 billion in 2026

The e-Conomy SEA report, now in its 11th edition, is a joint effort by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company. Its central finding is that generative AI has moved from experimentation to daily habit across the region, with 243 million users already relying on it. That adoption rate is four times faster than the spread of mobile internet, which suggests the current growth phase is compressed compared with earlier digital waves.

The report breaks the digital economy into familiar segments, but the AI effect shows up differently in each. E-commerce, the largest at $226B GMV, is seeing shoppers use multimodal discovery and in-app assistants to navigate complex purchases, which the report says drives 10% higher conversions and order volume uplifts as large as 75%. Online travel shows generative AI overtaking social media as the second-most-used tool for organizing complex itineraries, behind traditional search engines. Online media is personalizing feeds and ads, yielding a 10 to 20% quality engagement uplift, and commerce media is now a $4 billion market. Mobility and food delivery is using predictive suggestions and smarter routing for $40B GMV, while digital financial services reaches $1,650B GTV with real-time fraud detection and broader credit access.

The trust data explains why agentic commerce is moving from concept to runway. Already 72% of users rely on everyday automation like price tracking, and 75% say they are willing to let AI agents autonomously compare prices and complete transactions. That willingness rests on reported optimism: 62% say they trust AI tools more than a year ago, citing proven track records, rising familiarity and output accuracy. But users also expect guardrails — privacy safeguards, clear information on what AI can and cannot do, and the ability to reverse agentic transactions — which the report frames as conditions for deeper platform integration rather than obstacles. To sustain a projected 60-fold surge in regional AI usage, the report points to four requirements: agentic adoption with sustainable economics, roughly 3x data center capacity over five years, strict model and energy efficiency rules such as Singapore's PUE framework and Malaysia's CRESS model, and unified regional governance through the upcoming ASEAN DEFA in November 2026.