February 13, 2026
jakarta – Young people in Southeast Asia may be embracing artificial intelligence, but educational institutions and educators have not yet kept up with the pace of properly guiding the use of frontier technologies, according to the ASEAN Foundation and Google.org.
The ASEAN Foundation, the regional bloc’s development arm, and Google.org, the philanthropic arm of search engine giant Google, launched the ASEAN Digital Outlook report on Wednesday at the AI Ready ASEAN: Third Regional Policy Conference in Manila.
This report is part of AI Ready ASEAN, an initiative launched in 2024 by the ASEAN Foundation with a US$5 million grant from Google.org, to improve AI literacy across ASEAN member states.
“We see the adoption of AI across ASEAN far outpacing the ability of the systems to guide it,” Piti Srisannam, executive director of the ASEAN Foundation, said in a statement on Wednesday.
He said the ASEAN Digital Outlook aims to examine not only how AI is being used, but also the readiness of institutions, educators and societies across Southeast Asia to use it appropriately.
“Because this is important, [governments] “We can create policies that protect public trust, strengthen creativity, and ensure that AI benefits not only the economy but society as a whole,” Piti said.
AI Ready ASEAN also sought to assess the readiness of the education sector through a survey conducted in all 10 ASEAN countries. The findings show that young people are more engaged with technology than older generations.
