H1 2026 - Gen AI in APAC
Gen AI in APAC Marketing
Regional Snapshot
Asia-Pacific remains the world's fastest-growing AI market.
APAC's AI market reached an estimated USD 102 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to between USD 735–815 billion by 2032, a 34–35% CAGR. China alone accounts for roughly USD 30 billion of that total, ahead of India's USD 22.85 billion and Japan's USD 14 billion. Adoption is now mainstream: 84% of APAC's knowledge workers were already using AI at work as of the 2025 Work Trend Index, outpacing North America and Europe, with China and India both above 90%.
Country Highlights
China
Continued government investment, strong open-source models, and fast consumer chatbot adoption are driving e-commerce, manufacturing and smart-city use cases.
India
Enterprise adoption leads the region at 92% per a BCG survey, backed by 2.6 million annual STEM graduates and the government's IndiaAI Mission subsidising GPU access. On the marketing side, Lenovo India's use of AI Max for Search delivered a 73% lift in purchases and a 51% surge in ROAS by capturing longtail, intent-driven queries.
Japan & South Korea
Growth continues but talent is the constraint: Japan's AI market is forecast to grow from USD 7.6–11.8 billion toward somewhere between 26–126 billion by 2030, reflecting real uncertainty tied to a 100,000-person AI talent shortfall, while South Korea targets 200,000 AI professionals.
Southeast Asia
Brands are shifting budgets back to creator-led content as "AI slop" from tools like Sora and Meta Vibes saturates feeds and engagement declines. 82% of consumers prefer brands that engage them emotionally, and 74% of marketers now plan to increase influencer investment — most brands are landing on hybrid models: AI for personalization and data, humans for cultural nuance.
Platforms & Martech
- Google Marketing Live (late May): rolled out a Gemini-powered "Business Agent" replacing static lead forms, AI-written Shopping ad explainers, and a unified "Ask Advisor" agent spanning Ads, Analytics and Merchant Center.
- AI is reshaping discovery: Google Lens now powers over 25 billion visual searches a month, one in five with commercial intent, and Circle to Search drives over 10% of queries among younger consumers.
- Agentic commerce standards: Affinity joined the Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) in June as a founding member — the industry's first open standard letting AI agents negotiate and transact media directly with publisher agents.
- Deloitte, April 2026: more than half of APAC consumer businesses already have live AI implementations across marketing, sales and customer support; nine in ten retail executives expect AI to overtake traditional search by 2026.
Events
- Cannes Lions 2026 (June 22–26): returns with a focus on human creative authority after consumer pushback on AI-generated ads; a new "Cannes Lions Deconstructed" track headlines craft and cultural fluency as the differentiators.
- Microsoft Advertising's "All In on AI" series launched in January, spotlighting APAC leaders on pairing AI with creativity across the region's mobile-first, super-app markets.
- Regional CMO roundtables (e.g. the Marketing Leaders Connect series, June 2026) continue to stress that data fuels insight, but human judgment still drives marketing impact.
What to Watch Next Quarter
- Agentic advertising standards (AdCP and similar) moving from pilot to production.
- Whether Southeast Asia's creator-economy pivot spreads to other APAC markets as "AI slop" fatigue grows.
- Continued divergence between China's open-source-led ecosystem and the rest of APAC's platform-dependent approach.
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