Thailand bets big on AI despite talent shortage

Thailand is making headlines as Asia's most ambitious artificial intelligence market, according to a new survey by Alibaba Cloud conducted by NielsenIQ across eight Asian markets.

The AI Business Application Readiness and Accessibility Survey found that 79% of Thai enterprises plan to increase AI investment by at least 50%, the highest proportion among all countries surveyed. This places Thailand at the forefront of a regional shift away from AI experimentation toward active deployment.

Across Asia more broadly, 90% of companies said they are optimistic about AI adoption, and 95% plan to increase spending on AI products and services. More than half expect AI budgets to grow by over 20% in the coming year, covering cloud infrastructure, development platforms and AI models.

Around 75% of Asian enterprises said AI is already indispensable to their operations, while nearly 90% have adopted AI development platforms and AI models. Only 1% said AI is not a business priority.

The top AI use cases identified in the survey include data analysis and decision-making at 66%, customer service and chatbots at 64%, marketing and content creation at 58%, product development and coding at 55%, and human resources at 38%.

Notably, the primary driver of AI investment has shifted. While 63% of respondents cited improving operational efficiency, 64% said AI adoption is now mainly about creating new business opportunities and accelerating innovation, moving beyond simple cost reduction.

On infrastructure preferences, 45% of respondents favoured a fully integrated AI and cloud solution, compared with 34% who preferred hybrid deployment across multiple cloud environments.

Despite this strong momentum, challenges remain. Data privacy and security is the biggest concern, cited by 48% of enterprises as a significant obstacle to scaling AI. The survey also highlights an acute shortage of skilled AI talent as a barrier to growth.

Feifei Li, chief technology officer and president of international business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, stated that AI delivered on scalable, secure cloud infrastructure will be the defining technology platform for the next decade.

For business owners and investors operating in Thailand, this shift toward AI-driven operations will increasingly shape the regulatory and compliance landscape, making it important to stay informed about how these changes may affect data governance and business structures here.

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