Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Southeast Asia is a hot market for AI adoption. With competition among major players heating up and technology providers increasingly integrating AI into their offerings, AI is now more accessible to mid-market retailers as well as major enterprises. The region is also well-suited to AI integration, as this market typically moves quickly to implement new technologies once they are proven.

While affordable AI technologies and the appetite to harness them exist among retailers, there is a key challenge that is often absent from the frantic discourse found online or in the press: determining specific use cases that add value. 

From chatbots to retrieval augmented generation systems (RAG) and autonomous AI agents, organisations are still working out how to implement AI effectively and efficiently. The excitement around AI’s potential is clear, but businesses need to ensure any implementation delivers tangible value, rather than just being there for the sake of it.

This leaves retailers in a challenging position. The pressure to adopt AI is significant and technologies are maturing fast. Companies must balance that pressure and identify practical applications that create real value for their business and customers.

What AI Adoption Looks Like in Retail Marketing

There are many ways a retailer could potentially integrate AI applications into its operations, depending on its size and needs. 

For example, a retailer might sign up for one of the many generative AI platforms available to produce promotional images and graphics for marketing purposes.

If the company operates an online presence, another entry point might be an LLM-driven chatbot that can handle customer inquiries around things like opening hours, item availability, specials and return policies.  

One increasingly popular and proven way that retailers in Southeast Asia can integrate AI into their operations is through solutions that leverage customer data to improve the shopping experience. We’re talking about authentic personalisation. 

Personalisation makes a retail store so much more. It allows brands to provide a shopping experience that is tailored to each customer’s individual preferences. 

Consider the following example. In the future, before setting foot in the store, customers of Cold Storage in Singapore might receive completely personalised product recommendations that consider not only their past purchases, dietary preferences and lifestyle, but also real-time contextual factors like the weather or local festivals.

These recommendations could be delivered through an app, via email, or even social media. The app could also create shopping lists based on weekly patterns and trends or upcoming holidays, helping customers save time while ensuring they don’t forget any regular staples. 

Another key pre-shopping AI opportunity is in personalised offers and promotions, including challenge offers. Challenge offers provide a gamified experience where customers are increasingly rewarded for meeting specific targets, such as spending a certain amount over a set period. These challenges can again be tailored to a customer’s preferences, presenting goals or targets for product groups they like or buy often.

Personalisation also extends to the in-store experience, where recommendations might pop up in the app based on where customers are in the store. Customers might also be scanning products with their phones to receive reviews and recipes that they might like. Taking this a step further, supplier-funded personalised ads for attractive items could also be generated on a customer-by-customer basis.

A Proven Way to Bring AI to Retailers in Southeast Asia

Personalisation and gamification solutions for retail can help retail brands increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Retailers don’t even need to have an existing loyalty program to get started.

In the case of Eagle Eye’s offering, for example, a retailer in Southeast Asia could get started delivering personalised challenge promotions, powered by AI, in as little as five weeks. This represents a speed to market that matches the region’s hunger to roll out technology solutions quickly.

Such solutions have already been delivered in other markets to great effect. For example, in the United Kingdom, major grocery brand Tesco has adopted AI and is using it to bring benefits to its customers.

Tesco launched Clubcard Challenges in May 2024. This is a loyalty-integrated gamification initiative that utilises AI to create customised, shopper-specific challenges. 

Loyalty members are invited to participate in the game, and they are then served 20 distinct challenges, like spending £20 on summer BBQ supplies, for the chance to collect up to £50 in Clubcard points. Once all tasks are completed, they can win additional rewards.

In other markets, major coffee chain Starbucks is leveraging its Deep Brew technology to analyse customer preferences and contextual data, enabling personalised recommendations like suggesting cold drinks to specific customers during warm weather. 

Similarly, French supermarket chain Carrefour has partnered with Eagle Eye to gamify its MyClub loyalty program, creating customised challenges and goals based on individual shopping patterns and purchase history data.

Make it Happen with AI

The examples and real-world case studies presented above demonstrate how retailers in the region can create powerful customer experiences, drive loyalty and increase profitability, all without extensive lead times or long implementation timelines. 

Rollouts can be done quickly and cautiously. Pilot programs can be run to test effectiveness before moving to full-scale adoption. 

Taking the first steps in AI-driven personalisation with a partner like Eagle Eye means retailers in Southeast Asia can get started with innovative solutions like challenge offers quickly and easily, taking the anxiety out of being left behind in the AI race and joining other early adopting global brands in reaping the benefits. 

This thought leadership piece is written by Aaron Crowe, Regional Director, Eagle Eye, Asia

Australia – Salesforce has announced a landmark investment of $2.5 billion in Australia over the next five years, reinforcing its commitment to AI innovation, workforce development, and sustainability initiatives. The announcement was made at Agentforce World Tour Sydney, Salesforce’s largest local event to date, which has attracted over 10,000 customers, partners, employees, and stakeholders.

This significant investment aligns with Australia’s vision to harness artificial intelligence for economic growth and technological leadership. By expanding its AI capabilities and supporting local industries, Salesforce aims to contribute to a more prosperous future for all Australians.

Salesforce has been a key player in Australia’s digital economy since establishing its presence in the country in 2004. With over 2,400 employees and a vast ecosystem of partners, the company continues to drive AI advancements that enhance productivity and customer experiences.

The company’s venture capital arm, Salesforce Ventures, has already invested over $6 billion in more than 630 companies worldwide, with Australian investments surpassing $12 billion in market capitalization. Notable AI investments include Airwallex, GO1, Culture Amp, Reejig, and Q-Ctrl.

Frank Fillmann, EVP & general manager at Salesforce Australia and New Zealand, said, “Australian business leaders are challenged by low productivity growth, a tight labour market and higher than ever customer expectations. Empowering their employees with Agentforce and limitless digital labour is the breakthrough they need.”

As part of its mission to prepare Australian businesses for the AI revolution, Salesforce has appointed Anne Templeman-Jones as the first Australian member of its Global Advisory Board. Her expertise will help guide business leaders in adopting AI-driven strategies.

To further support skills development, Salesforce will launch a series of Agentforce Learning Days and Hackathons in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. These events will help employees from over 270 companies build and deploy AI agents, ensuring they stay competitive in the evolving digital economy.

Salesforce is also backing workforce diversity initiatives, such as the Deloitte Digital Career Compass program and the FW Jobs Academy. These programs aim to equip women and diverse communities with in-demand Salesforce AI skills, contributing to the Australian government’s goal of creating 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030.

Beyond AI and workforce training, Salesforce continues to champion sustainability efforts in Australia. By fostering collaboration with government agencies, universities, vocational education providers, and non-profits, the company is playing a pivotal role in shaping a sustainable digital future.

With 21 years of experience in Australia, Salesforce’s continued investment underscores its dedication to helping the nation become a global leader in AI-driven economic growth. Through strategic investments and partnerships, the company is set to empower businesses and individuals to thrive in the era of artificial intelligence.

The new follows the recent partnership between Salesforce and Google where Agentforce will be able to use Google’s Gemini models, allowing agents to work with images, audio, and video, handle more complex tasks using Gemini’s multi-modal capabilities and two-million-token context windows, and act using real-time insights and answers grounded in Google Search with Vertex AI.

Indonesia –Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade, in collaboration with Google Indonesia, has introduced the ‘Gemini Academy,’ an initiative to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations and improve competitiveness.

The Gemini Academy will support both export and non-export local SMEs, with the goal of fostering innovation and helping businesses expand into international markets, Business Times reported.

The program will offer training in three categories—Potential Exporter SME, Basic Export SME, and Advanced Export SME—aimed at improving business processes and market expansion.

Minister Budi Santoso stated that the academy is expected to help SMEs streamline operations, lower costs, and enhance their competitiveness.

“By integrating AI into their business strategies, they will gain valuable insights into market trends and consumer preferences, which will enable them to refine their product offerings and improve marketing efforts,” the minister said in a statement, as quoted by Business Times.

Alongside SME-focused training, Google Indonesia will also provide 500 scholarships for Google Career Certificates, giving civil servants at the ministry access to AI-related courses.

Putri Alam, director of government affairs and public policy at Google Indonesia, said, “Indonesia is the first country globally to offer the Gemini Academy training program for SMEs, and the Ministry of Trade is our first government partner in Indonesia.”

She further noted that Gemini, an AI chatbot aimed at supporting creativity and productivity, can be accessed through the Google Play Store, App Store, or its official website.

China – Apple and Alibaba Group are reportedly forming a partnership that will integrate Alibaba’s artificial intelligence technology into iPhone services in China.

Alibaba Group chairman Joe Tsai announced the partnership during an interview with Jeffrey Katzenberg at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Bloomberg reported.

The report states that Alibaba’s technology will power the iPhone’s AI services in China.

“Apple has been very selective, they talked to a number of companies in China, and in the end they chose to do business with us; they want to use our AI to power their phones,” Tsai made the remark in the interview, as quoted by Bloomberg.

Tsai further explained that Apple has yet to roll out its full suite of AI features in China due to regulations that require the company to partner with a locally accredited firm.

In a separate report, Reuters highlighted that Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged as much as 9.2% to HK$124.3, their highest level since January 2022. The stock later pared its gains, closing up 2.6%.

According to Reuters, the landmark deal puts an end to months of speculation about Apple’s AI strategy in the region, as the iPhone maker had been in talks with Chinese tech giants such as Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent.

It remains unclear whether Apple’s partnership with Alibaba will follow a similar model to that of iPhones outside China, which use a combination of Apple’s proprietary AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

This partnership is seen as a significant win for Alibaba, which is currently competing with major domestic rivals in China’s highly competitive AI market. It is worth noting that Alibaba has recently intensified its efforts in the AI race with the release of its Qwen 2.5 models, which the company claims can rival the leading open-source AI models available.

Taiwan – Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) has banned the use of DeepSeek’s newly launched AI service from China in the public sector, citing concerns over data privacy and security risks.

According to a report by the Taipei Times, MODA has advised government agencies and critical infrastructure to avoid using DeepSeek, stating that it “endangers national information security.”

MODA’s ban covers employees of government agencies, public schools, state-owned enterprises, semi-official organisations, critical infrastructure projects, and government-endowed foundations. However, it did not provide details on enforcement. 

The ministry also referenced the ‘Principles on Restricting the Use of Products That Endanger National Cyber Security,’ a 2019 Executive Yuan regulation that bans government agencies from using IT and communication technology products or services deemed a national security risk.

“DeepSeek AI service is a Chinese product. Its operation involves cross-border transmission and information leakage and other information security concerns,” the Taipei Times reported, quoting the ministry.

Taiwan’s ban on DeepSeek comes amid growing global concerns about how the service collects and handles personal data.

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission plans to send a written request to DeepSeek seeking clarification on how user data is managed, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, authorities in France, Italy, Ireland, and other countries are also investigating DeepSeek’s handling of personal data.

DeepSeek has recently gained attention in the AI industry, with its free AI assistant model surpassing U.S. rival ChatGPT in app store downloads. The company’s claim that it matches the capabilities of leading U.S. AI models for a fraction of the investment have also stirred interest among global investors.

China – Alibaba, the Chinese tech and e-commerce giant, has officially joined the AI race with the launch of Qwen2.5-VL, an open-source multimodal model that builds on the capabilities of its predecessor, Qwen2-VL.

In a blog post, Alibaba shared that Qwen2.5-VL shows impressive multimodal capabilities, excelling at understanding texts, charts, diagrams, and layouts in images. It can also analyse videos longer than an hour, answer related questions, and pinpoint specific segments.

Additionally, the model can also convert unstructured data from invoices, forms, or tables into organised formats like JSON, making it useful for automating tasks such as processing financial or legal documents.

Alibaba also claimed that by combining parsing and localisation features, Qwen2.5-VL can act as a visual agent, helping users perform tasks like checking the weather or booking a flight by guiding the use of different tools on computers and mobile devices.

The company further revealed that their flagship model, Qwen2.5-VL-72B-Instruct, performs competitively across a range of benchmarks, including document and diagram reading, visual question answering, college-level math, video understanding, and visual tasks.

It’s also worth noting that Alibaba and the Qwen team are developing Qwen2.5-Max, a large-scale MoE model they claim outperforms DeepSeek V3 in key areas like coding, general tasks, and human preferences. They also stated it has shown competitive results in other assessments, including tests on college-level knowledge.

“Qwen2.5-Max outperforms … almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3, and Llama-3.1-405B,” Alibaba’s cloud unit said in an announcement on its official WeChat account, referencing OpenAI and Meta’s leading open-source AI models, Reuters reported.

Both Qwen2.5-Max and Qwen2.5-VL are now accessible via Qwen Chat, Alibaba’s conversational AI platform, where users can interact with the models, explore features, and perform tasks like searching. Additionally, developers can access the Qwen2.5-Max API through Alibaba Cloud.

The release of Alibaba’s Qwen2.5 comes after DeepSeek launched its AI assistant powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model on January 10, followed by the January 20 release of its R1 model, which has sparked significant discussions around the AI boom and the pressure for AI firms to upgrade their own model. 

United States – Brightcove has announced the launch of its AI Content Suite, which ntroduces a range of AI-powered tools to increase the impact of video content while also improving business productivity, making it a seamless and easy experience for content creators to get more from their content and drive greater engagement across their audiences.

The Brightcove AI Content Suite includes three AI-powered capabilities – content creation, metadata optimisation, and translation – which simplify video content production by automating the creation and optimisation processes.

The AI Content Suite empowers companies to fully utilise their video content by offering a range of advanced features. It enables the rapid and automated transformation of long-form videos into engaging short-form clips, highlight reels, and theme-based chapters, optimizing content for maximum reach across multiple channels. 

Additionally, it converts horizontal video formats into vertical layouts, enhancing engagement with mobile audiences and improving visibility on social media platforms. To further increase discoverability, the suite automatically generates metadata, including titles, tags, and descriptions, ensuring that relevant content reaches the right audience. Moreover, its upcoming universal translation capabilities will support dozens of languages, making content more accessible and expanding global reach.

The Brightcove AI Content Suite is part of Brightcove’s broader AI product strategy and roadmap. It was built in close collaboration with customers across various industries to create solutions that address their business needs, such as deepening audience engagement and improving efficiencies in creating, editing and distributing video content.

The Brightcove AI Suite will continue to launch new products based on customer feedback. These include the addition of text-to-video capabilities and AI-powered automated video interactivity, personalization, and recommendations to engage audiences and build loyalty.

Scott Levine, chief product officer at Brightcove, said, “The AI Content Suite is a force multiplier for anyone looking to expand the impact of their video content without increasing their workload. Embedded within our video platform, the AI Content Suite easily and quickly enables a video creation multiplier effect without going to other tools and platforms. This allows our customers to maximize their content reach and engagement.”

Singapore – A new report from IDC has predicted that by 2028, consumers will spend $32b via AI agents that run independently on their smartphones to programmatically shop for goods, services, and considered purchases. It also highlighted that CX executives will adjust their business strategies based on such initiatives and seek to incorporate a more AI-infused approach in their campaigns.

It also highlighted that around 40% of CX vendors will shift to new, outcome-based, pricing models making the value exchange for their clients more transparent and improving the monetisation of their AI investment.

Moreover, as AI implementations scale, human-in-the-loop approaches will be eliminated, resulting in 25% of CX teams creating new, dedicated roles for the systemic governance of AI by 2028.

The report also predicts that seeing value in referral growth and in controlling costs, by 2028, 30% of A2000 companies will have restructured and aligned their customer-facing teams under a CRO to optimise CX outcomes.

Lastly, around 20% of B2C A2000 companies by 2028 will enable real-time IoT-product data to notify customers of future failures, issue resolution recommendations, and help customers self-solve proactively.

Abhishek Kumar, associate research director and head of AP Enterprise Applications & CX at IDC Asia-Pacific, said, “Tech-driven CX enhancements have always been AP retailers’ top go-to differentiator in a highly commoditised market with indistinguishable products and services. A key challenge for them is to refocus IT and digital initiatives to improve operational efficiencies. Many look to AI to modernise and unify their underlying data infrastructure, breaking down existing organisational silos, moving towards a holistic experience-orchestrated (X-O) approach that creates meaningful value for all key stakeholders and not just customers.”

Artificial intelligence. It’s been the hot topic for the last two years since generative AI exploded into the mainstream. And to be honest, it isn’t going anywhere. There has been lots of chatter about how the technology will revolutionise our lives and in 2025, I believe this is when we will truly see some game-changing innovation with AI that moves beyond just productivity.

From becoming your personal assistant to the evolution of generated content and the emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI), these are the next big trends in AI we can expect to see over the coming year and beyond.

The year of the AI agent

AI agents have been popping up throughout 2024. For those who might have missed them or are unsure what an ‘AI agent’ is, it is basically an autonomous intelligent system performing specific tasks with minimal to no human intervention. Their purpose is ultimately to automate those mundane and time consuming tasks, usually with the ability to complete them instantaneously.

Not only will they become your very own personal assistant, but they will also increasingly assist in customer support roles. Speaking to Bloomberg recently, Sequoia Capital’s Konstantine Buhler noted not only will 2025 become the year of the AI agent but we will also begin to see them working together in swarms and networks. 

Significant cloud infrastructure is currently being developed to support voice-to-voice AI agents across various scenarios. So expect to see more of them used for customer service, development, language translation and in gaming and entertainment.

The next evolution of content creation

AI generated content is going nowhere in 2025 – it is only set to become more prolific across all mediums. Beyond just text and image, we will see video and audio generation technology continue to evolve, improving quality and consistency. 

Generative 3D content will also gain more traction. Unlike generative text, image, and video content, AI-generated 3D has seen less development, though it’s crucial for immersive social experiences. Innovations like Gaussian splatting – an advanced form of photogrammetry – and generative 3D are set to break new ground.

Additionally, with the pressures to be constantly creating and appearing in content, it’s likely we will see influencers and content creators leverage generative AI tools to produce videos, images, and other content. The success of new tools, like NotebookLM, allow creators to be replaced or augmented by multimodal AIs capable of replicating their likeness.

This is all, of course, a double-edged sword with concerns around deepfakes, impersonations and breach of copyright remaining front and centre. For these reasons, mainstream video and audio generators will face increased scrutiny regarding their training datasets. Companies like Suno, currently facing legal action from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and Runway, which reportedly trained on thousands of YouTube videos, are already being examined. 

On the flip side, Adobe has been setting the standard to avoid such issues. Its generative AI tool Adobe Firefly takes a cautious approach by using only licensed material. This shift will eventually provide clarity and establish a framework for brands to safely use generative technologies.

Beyond the LLM

The evolution of large language models (LLMs) has started to plateau, highlighting the need for new technologies and methodologies to push further advancements and work towards AGI. Although AGI is not necessary for practical AI applications, it remains a significant milestone.

AGI is when the technology will be able to perform tasks that it is not necessarily trained or developed for. AI as we know it is usually trained on set parameters, whereas AGI will be able to train itself beyond these parameters and learn new skills autonomously. 

The concept sounds very Black Mirror – and for now, it still is very much a theoretical concept. However, given the rapid pace of AI development, unless we face another AI winter, it might not be too far away.

As a techno-optimist, I believe that AI will bring some of its most exciting developments yet in 2025. However, much work remains in areas like education, informed regulation, and the development of mechanisms and methodologies to ensure this powerful technology is used responsibly and not for malicious purposes. If we get this right, AI will unlock exciting possibilities for both businesses and consumers.

This thought leadership is written by Manolis Perrakis, Innovation Director at We Are Social Singapore

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT in Marketing 2025, a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for 2025 and beyond.

Explaining to marketers that artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way they execute marketing campaigns and how they interact with customers is an unnecessary endeavour. Pretty much every industry has either already widely adopted the technology, or is in the process of weaving it into its current technology stack. 

The question we should endeavour to ask, though, is how marketers can make the most of AI, and what they should prepare for as 2025 is fast approaching. 

A significant area of interest is AI-generated content. It offers immense value both from an efficiency and customer engagement perspective, but also raises concerns:  how much can we give to AI? What is the place of us humans, particularly marketers in the equation? How to ensure accuracy and an ethical use of AI? 

These considerations will be crucial as marketing strategies and technology investments for 2025 take shape.

What’s Next in AI-Generated Content 

Thanks to AI, we have really entered an era where content is king. Tools, driven by AI, not only enhance content creation but are also changing how content is delivered. 

The last decade saw marketers focus on using data-driven technologies to improve personalisation. What we are now entering is an era of AI-driven hyper-personalisation, where customer experiences are tailored to individual preferences using vast amounts of data.

By harnessing AI, marketers can understand individual preferences, behaviours and context. They can recommend tailored products, predict customer needs and automate responses. Those seamless, hyper-personalised experiences are what will keep customers coming back and engaging more with their favourite brands. 

Four Ways AI Will Impact Content for Marketers

  1. Deeper personalisation at scale, tailored to each user – Еxamples of this include customised homepage content based on past purchases and browsing history, product recommendations matching user profiles, personalised search results ranked by relevance to the individual, email and push notification content tailored to past responses, chatbots providing personalised answers based on context, and next best action recommendations to enhance the customer journey.
  1. Faster, smarter content creation, localisation and omnichannel publishing – AI is an incredibly handy tool for automating content generation, including suggesting topics and headlines, rewriting content for different formats, or writing full articles using natural language generation (NLG). More and more, this will also apply to images and video assets, which can help marketers provide even richer content. The latest tools can also advise on when to publish, and which channels make the most sense based on trends, behaviour and competitors.
  1. More relevant search results and chatbot interactions – By implementing natural language processing and voice search, marketers can allow customers to find information in an intuitive, conversational way. Voice search is the next big thing to come out of AI, allowing users to speak their search queries out loud, which will create a more human-like search experiences, leading to higher satisfaction and engagement.
  1. Actionable analytics to guide better content decisions – Мore and more, AI will help optimise content for better performance by analysing and providing recommendations for titles, descriptions, keywords and other elements. This will ultimately also help improve search engine rankings. AI can also identify areas that need improvement before publishing, while NLP techniques can help analyse user-generated content (comments, social media discussions, feedback) to understand sentiments and preferences. 

Governance and human oversight: three tips for a sustainable use of AI

The increasing use of AI demands greater responsibility. While AI tools can enhance user engagement and efficiency, careful governance and human oversight are crucial as the technology rapidly evolves.

  1. Avoiding AI hallucinations – Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) combines GenAI with detailed, relevant data to deliver accurate, reliable and useful insights. RAG is a technology that provides much needed context and insight to decrease the chances of hallucinations, improve accuracy and reduce costs. 
  1. Maintaining messaging and brand control – Using AI algorithms that generate content based on that data can result in messaging that doesn’t align with a brand’s values, personality or voice. Establishing clear guidelines and implementing review processes can ensure consistent messaging that reflects the brand’s values. It could be done by developing specific rules for the types of content that can be generated, or defining the boundaries for AI-generated content usage.
  1. Ethical and legal implications – AI-generated content may be susceptible to bias or discrimination, especially in sensitive industries like healthcare or finance where accuracy and transparency are critical. Marketers need to collaborate with legal and regulatory experts so they can develop guidelines that guarantee that their use of AI complies with relevant laws and regulations, and avoid potential legal issues. 

2025 has the potential to be an incredible year for marketers who understand the potential of AI, and how to use the technology effectively. However, they need to remember that AI is not a magic wand. It requires thoughtful planning, robust data infrastructure and ethical considerations. 

This thought leadership is written by Jay Sanderson, Senior Principal Customer Architect at Progress

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT in Marketing 2024-2025, a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.