Customer service is the leading use case in Southeast Asian e-commerce, followed by marketing and advertising, according to a joint report by Lazada and Kantar about AI adoption trends in the six largest economies in Southeast Asia. Also known as the ASEAN-6, they comprise Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
A McKinsey survey released in March revealed a similar trend: Companies have adopted genAI for marketing and sales, with tech companies leading the charge. It also showed that most adopters are using the technology to generate text, with 63% of surveyed companies reporting that they do so.
GenAI presents a unique boon for a region as linguistically diverse as Southeast Asia: Aside from writing personalized marketing messages, it can also translate promotional texts into different languages.
For example, Lita Global, an Indonesia-based social media platform for gamers, is benefiting a lot from that. Since integrating OpenAI’s models in the second half of last year, it said, it has been able to host almost twice as many online gaming events monthly, thanks to greater efficiency.
That’s a big boost for its business, since every event can raise weekly revenues by an average of 20%, the company said.
With genAI, employees can quickly translate announcements about events from English to Southeast Asian languages, such as Vietnamese and Thai, to reach more users in the region. And that frees them up — time originally used for writing, translating and formatting promotional text can now be used for organizing more revenue-generating events, according to Lita Global.
The company also uses genAI in its chat function to recommend responses to users. Lita Global is a social platform where users can hire other gamers to play with them online.
Gamers for hire typically chat with users before an order is placed for a gaming session. But that can be difficult when demand for gamers is high and gamers for hire are busy with other matches. Gamers for hire who use the AI-recommended responses have seen a 10% to 20% uptick in orders, said Lita Global’s CEO Yihao Zhang.
“So we’re using AI to really help them to improve their efficiency, to help them to be more available to the users,” Zhang said.
Another way Southeast Asian MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) can use genAI in marketing is through AI livestreaming. Google’s SEA e-Conomy report noted that live shopping has become more popular in the region. Live shopping, or livestreaming, usually involves a host showcasing the products for sale. Not only does this include clothing try-ons, but shoppers can also ask questions in the comments section, which are answered in real time.
While livestreams are traditionally hosted by humans in studios, MSMEs may lack the funds or technical know-how to execute regular livestreams to boost sales. AI livestreaming can open doors to new opportunities for sellers, said Jensen Wu, CEO of TopviewAI.
TopviewAI says on its website that its AI livestreaming services can cost around $1 per minute. Instead of spending on studio rental, samples of the merchandise and labor of human hosts, companies can have one person monitor the livestream, Wu said. That helps lower costs while boosting sales, making for a “pretty good” return on investment, he added.