Southeast Asia Already Buys in Chat. The New Part Is Who Answers
On 21 October 2026 Google, Temasek and Bain & Company published e-Conomy SEA 2026, the eleventh edition of their report on the region’s digital economy. Most outlets led with the digital economy growing 17% this year. For anyone who sells to people in the region, the adoption figures further down matter more.
| e-Conomy SEA 2026 (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines) | Figure |
|---|---|
| People using generative AI | 243 million, 58% of the working population, in under three years |
| How often | Half weekly, almost a fifth daily |
| Consumers who use AI to compare product options | 69% |
| Consumers who trust the recommendations AI gives them | 93% |
| Population paying to use generative AI | About 1 to 2% |
Source: Google, Temasek and Bain & Company, e-Conomy SEA 2026, 21 October 2026
Customers in the region have changed how they research and choose. The question for a seller is whether the way they answer those customers has changed too.
Buying in chat is an old habit here
Buying through a chat conversation was already common in Southeast Asia in 2019. That year Facebook and Boston Consulting Group surveyed 8,864 buyers, sellers and experts, 5,391 of them in the region.
| Market | Had bought through a chat conversation | Comfortable chatting with an automated bot for basic product details, delivery updates and photos |
|---|---|---|
| Thailand | 40% | 47% |
| Vietnam | 36% | 62% |
| Indonesia | 29% | 53% |
| Malaysia | 26% | 60% |
| Philippines | 23% | 55% |
Source: Facebook and Boston Consulting Group, 2019, reported by Marketing-Interactive and KrASIA, November 2019. Facebook (now Meta) sells business messaging.
The same study found 57% of chat shoppers chatted to get product or price information and 35% to negotiate on price. It is seven years old and should always be dated. We have found no recent public figure that isolates chat purchases by country in the region, so read it as evidence of a long-standing habit.
The comfort figures stand out now. Majorities in four of the five markets were comfortable with an automated bot for routine questions before current AI tools existed.
The gap
Customers here have bought through conversations for years, now use AI to decide what to buy, and largely trust what it tells them. Many of the sellers they message are still one person with a phone, answering while awake, with a price list in their head. That last point is our reading from running customer conversations in the region, and the report does not measure it.
The tools to close the gap exist and are within reach of a small business. What has lagged is setup: the price list in one place, payment and delivery connected, and someone deciding how each type of question should be handled. The report’s own figure points the same way. Only 1 to 2% of people pay for generative AI, so almost all of this adoption runs on free consumer tools.
What that means for a seller here
Your product information is read by AI before a person sees it. If 69% of shoppers use AI to compare options, your product pages and chat replies are being summarised on their behalf. Vague, inconsistent or missing information now produces a wrong summary as well as a confused customer.
Trust in AI cuts both ways. With 93% trusting what AI tells them, a confident wrong answer about your return policy or delivery time gets believed. If you run automation, tie its answers to your real orders, stock and policies. See AI hallucination.
Reply speed decides many sales. A shopper who compared options with AI in seconds will buy from the seller who answers the last question first, even at 11pm. Meta’s own research points the same way.
| Kantar survey for Meta, 2025 fieldwork | Figure |
|---|---|
| Prefer messaging when communicating with a business | 73.3% |
| More likely to buy from a brand that offers messaging | 72.4% |
| Frustrated when messaging is not offered | 66.8% |
| Find a response from an AI chatbot helpful | 67.7% |
Source: Meta, State of Business Messaging, 2026 report. Kantar, commissioned by Meta. 11,056 online adults aged 18 to 64 in 22 markets, fieldwork April to September 2025. Meta sells business messaging.
Local payment and delivery decide whether a chat becomes a sale. At the chat level most AI tools work in much the same way. What differs is what each one connects to. In this region that means the payment processors and couriers people actually use. A tool with no local payment or courier connection can hold a conversation but cannot finish the sale inside it.
The region is several markets
Treating Southeast Asia as one market leads to building the wrong thing. Three differences matter day to day.
The main chat app differs by country. WhatsApp is the main business chat app in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. The Philippines leans to Messenger, Vietnam to Zalo and Thailand to LINE. A plan built only on WhatsApp covers part of the region. AeroChat’s channels today are WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, email and web chat, plus one TikTok channel covering TikTok direct messages and TikTok Shop buyer chat in one inbox. Zalo and Viber are coming next.
Payment habits differ. Cards, bank transfer, e-wallets and cash on delivery carry different weight in each country. A payment link helps only if it offers the method that country’s customers use, which is a question for your payment provider.
Customers mix languages in one message. In Singapore and Malaysia a single message can switch between English, Malay, Mandarin and dialect. Older keyword-matching tools failed on exactly this. AeroChat replies in the customer’s language, including mixed English such as Singlish and Manglish. Test any tool on your own customers’ messages, not on clean English.
What to do about it
Three steps, in order of how quickly they pay back.
- Make one correct price list that software can read. A Google Sheet is enough to start. Inconsistent data is the biggest single cause of bad automated answers, and fixing it costs nothing. See how to start selling in chat with a Google Sheet.
- Cover the hours you are closed. Use real answers on price, availability, delivery and order status, which make up much of what arrives after 7pm, instead of a holding message. See first response time.
- Connect payment and delivery to the conversation. This is what turns an answered question into an order. See the four pieces a chat sale needs.
Two figures to treat with care
The e-Conomy report also says AI could be used up to 60 times as much across the region by 2030, and that AI has delivered order volume uplifts “as large as 75%” for some commerce players. The 75% is the top of what some companies saw, so treat it as a ceiling. A 2030 projection in a market changing this fast shows direction only. The adoption figures are the part of the report to act on.
Read next
- e-Conomy SEA 2026: the daily briefing
- The four pieces a chat sale needs
- What selling in chat does to your sales and support numbers
- Conversational commerce
- Payment link
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