Only 7% of ASEAN firms ready to scale AI agents: survey

Companies placed greater importance on regional expansion and supply-chain resilience.

Only 7% of large enterprises across ASEAN are ready to scale agentic artificial intelligence, despite 87% already having AI agents in pilot programmes or production, according to a survey released by the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.

The average AI-readiness score amongst surveyed enterprises stood at 42 out of 100.

Culture and change management were identified as the largest internal barrier to scaling agentic AI, cited by 27% of respondents, ahead of legacy technology and data-readiness issues.

The findings were included in the 2026 ASEAN Business Outlook Survey, produced by AmChamSG in partnership with Accenture and Google.

Mark Tham, country managing director of Accenture Singapore, said the gap between AI deployment and readiness was primarily an organisational issue rather than a technological one.

He identified clear accountability, AI-ready data and an understanding of individual markets as important foundations for businesses seeking to expand their use of the technology.

The survey also found that 68% of respondents regarded ASEAN markets outside Singapore as very important, up 22 percentage points from 46% in 2022.

Supply-chain resilience and the diversification of operations concentrated in China now rival consumer-market growth as leading reasons for investing in ASEAN.

AmChamSG CEO Hsien-Hsien Lei said the findings reflected Singapore’s continuing role as a trusted base for companies pursuing opportunities across the region.

The chamber said Singapore’s talent, infrastructure and institutional frameworks could position it to support the wider adoption of agentic AI across ASEAN.