Gemini is accelerating fastest in Southeast Asia, and the main reason is becoming increasingly clear: the AI feels more natural when it understands local languages. In a region defined by multilingual habits, that advantage appears to matter more than simple translation.
Google’s Gemini Report: Southeast Asia 2026 says active Gemini users in the region have more than doubled over the past year. That growth has placed Gemini among Google’s fastest-growing applications in Southeast Asia.
Local language use is driving adoption
Nearly 70 percent of Gemini prompts in Southeast Asia are written in each country’s local language. Indonesia is one of the most active markets, with 84 percent of interactions using local language.
Vietnam leads the region at 89 percent, followed by Thailand at 87 percent. The numbers suggest that AI in Southeast Asia must understand not only language, but also local context and culture.
| Country | Share of Local-Language Prompts |
|---|---|
| Vietnam | 89 percent |
| Thailand | 87 percent |
| Indonesia | 84 percent |
Mark Pereira, Head of Partnerships, Strategy and Growth (AI Products) at AI Singapore, said adoption happens when technology feels natural rather than merely translated. He said AI models in Southeast Asia need a deep understanding of local context to be effective for learning, writing, and complex business brainstorming.
Indonesia is also shaping multimodal AI habits
Indonesia stands out as a major market for multimodal AI use. In the country, 82 percent of Gemini interactions come from mobile devices, while one in two prompts already uses voice or image instead of text alone.
That shift shows users are becoming more comfortable using AI across different types of input. Google also said Indonesians are among the region’s most creative users, generating nearly 9 million images every day with Gemini’s generative model.
Across Southeast Asia, around 40 percent of user requests are now aimed at creating new content rather than answering questions. The outputs range from images and music to video and documents.
Over the past year, users in Southeast Asia generated about 5 billion images using Nano Banana and nearly 1 million songs through the generative music model Lyria 3. The figures point to a major move from AI as a question-answering tool to AI as a creation tool.
From chatbot to AI agent
Google says the next stage is not another chatbot, but an AI agent that can complete tasks independently. With Gemini Spark, AI does more than answer questions and can work proactively through integration with Gmail, Docs, Slides, and other Workspace services.
The feature is designed to keep running in the background even when the user’s device is not in use. Starting this week, Gemini Spark is also available in multiple local languages for Gemini Advanced subscribers, alongside features such as Nano Banana, Canvas, and Gems.
For Southeast Asia, that shift matters because competition in generative AI is no longer defined by text generation alone. The strongest platforms are increasingly the ones that understand local language, accept multimodal input, and carry out tasks automatically.
In a region of more than 600 million people, language and local context are emerging as major differentiators in the global AI race. Gemini’s recent growth suggests that the fastest-growing AI is not necessarily the biggest, but the one that best understands how people speak and work.