East Ventures launched a white paper focusing on AI, a bold take on how AI is reshaping Southeast Asia

East Ventures, a pioneering and leading venture capital firm in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, today released a white paper titled “AI-first: Decoding Southeast Asia trends”. This white paper offers a deep dive into how AI (artificial intelligence), particularly Generative AI (GenAI), is reshaping the business and innovation landscape across Southeast Asia.

As the global AI movement gains momentum, it is anticipated that by 2025, 25% of businesses will begin implementing GenAI, with projections rising to 50% by 2027. This surge is driven by groundbreaking innovations that enable companies to improve efficiency, optimize operations, and unlock new growth potential. In Southeast Asia (SEA), AI is expected to provide a 10% to 18% uplift in GDP by 2030. 

However, SEA currently accounts for only a small share of global investment in AI. While the AI ecosystem in the region is still in the early stages, East Ventures sees strong growth potential in downstream applications across key sectors, particularly in the use of GenAI. In this context, East Ventures reaffirms its strong investment conviction in AI, positioning AI-first startups as one of its key focus areas in 2025.  

East Ventures believes businesses must adapt and adopt AI to remain relevant and competitive in a fast-evolving market landscape. East Ventures has also observed a strong pipeline of startups and its own portfolio companies that are leveraging existing foundation models and building ready-to-use solutions on top of them. 

“We believe innovation should be accessible to all. The rise of GenAI is lowering barriers for founders from diverse backgrounds to create meaningful impacts. AI should not be adopted just to follow the hype, but it should be leveraged to build more intuitive, efficient, and scalable solutions. Every region has its own strength in AI race, and we believe that Southeast Asia’s strength lies in its ability to adapt and apply ready-to-use AI models effectively within local contexts,” said Willson Cuaca, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at East Ventures.

The white paper highlights GenAI’s emergence of two main solution categories and provides real examples of how East Ventures’ portfolio companies are integrating AI into their operations. East Ventures’ white paper: AI-first: Decoding Southeast Asia trends is available in English and Indonesian, and can be downloaded from east.vc/ai-whitepaper.