Asia-Pacific enterprises plan to increase AI investments

COMPANIES in the Asia-Pacific region plan to increase their investments in artificial intelligence (AI) this year as they seek to leverage these evolving technologies to boost profit and revenue growth, according to a study commissioned by Lenovo.

Some 96% of enterprises in the region expect their AI spending to grow by 15% this year as they shift from AI experimentation to execution, according to the report titled “Lenovo CIO Playbook 2026: The Race for Enterprise AI” released last month, which was commissioned by the tech company with insights from IDC.

Chief information officers (CIOs) in the region said they plan to invest in generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI, public cloud AI services, on-premises AI infrastructure, and AI security tools.

“When 96% of organizations are planning a 15% on average increase in AI investment, it tells us that AI decisions are now being made at the core of enterprise strategy,” said Sumir Bhatia, president of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group in Asia-Pacific. “The differentiator will be how effectively organizations integrate AI, embedding it into infrastructure, operations, and security so value compounds over time.”

AI is increasingly being deployed across customer service, marketing, operations, finance, and industry-specific lines of business, with half of surveyed organizations saying that non-IT departments are now funding AI initiatives, Lenovo added.

In ASEAN+, which includes the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, 98% of companies expect to spend more on AI this year, the study showed.

Their top AI investment priorities over the next 12 months are AI integration with devices, infrastructure and enterprise systems; public cloud AI services; data quality and governance improvements; deploying and supporting AI Infrastructure; and AI security, trust, and transparency tools.

According to the study, companies in ASEAN+ said their top business priorities are driving revenue and profit growth, enhancing business and customer experience, and improving employee productivity, with AI use being integrated in their strategies.

But while 67% of surveyed organizations in these countries said they are already piloting or have systematically adopted AI, 15% said they are just in the early stages of AI development, while 18% said they are still considering or planning AI adoption.

“This pivot has catalyzed a doubling of active AI adoption to 67%, but the region’s execution strategy is uniquely pragmatic, reflecting regional economic uncertainties. ASEAN+ is the only market where ‘AI integration with devices, infrastructure & enterprise systems’ is the #1 AI investment priority,” it said.

“This signals a focus on connectivity — wiring new AI capabilities directly into existing legacy environments so as to extract business value as quickly as possible.”

The study showed that 91% of surveyed organizations in ASEAN+ expect a positive return on investment from their AI initiatives, expecting to generate an average of $2.70 billion in value for every dollar invested in these projects.

The respondents said they have seen positive returns from their AI investments in IT, data and analytics, cybersecurity, customer service, and software development.

As for their preferred AI deployment models, 70% of ASEAN+ enterprises said they prefer their AI workloads on hybrid cloud.

“This regional trend to hybrid cloud reflects not a lack of caution but rather the region’s greater AI readiness. ASEAN+ boasts the greatest level of adoption of a more comprehensive approach to AI governance, risk and compliance (39%),” the report said.

“For CIOs, this combination of cloud agility and governance maturity makes ASEAN+ the ideal ‘sandbox’ for testing advanced Agentic AI (+91% focus) use cases before rolling them out to more restrictive markets.”

However, the report also showed that 43% of ASEAN+ companies said they need more than 12 months to prepare to scaled agentic AI implementation, while 19% said they have no plans to adopt these technologies. Only 11% said they are ready now, while 4% said they will be ready within a year. Meanwhile, 23% said they already use agentic AI significantly.

As for governance, 44% of organizations said they are still in the process of developing comprehensive policies on AI use, while 39% said they have already established frameworks that are being enforced and reviewed actively.

Their top AI trust concerns are the lack of responsible AI, poor data security, and poor data quality.

In the broader Asia-Pacific region, enterprises are already beginning to shift towards outcomes-led AI adoption as they want to ensure that their investments have sustained business impact, Lenovo said.

It added that scaling AI beyond pilots remains a key challenge across the region, which highlights the importance of governance, operating models, and lifecycle management.

“Scaling AI requires modern, energy-efficient hybrid infrastructure that supports high-performance workloads wherever data resides. CIOs must deploy devices and optimize client, edge, and cloud environments to meet growing demands and enable real-time AI operations.” — Bettina V. Roc