Google announced that active users of the Gemini app in Southeast Asia have more than doubled over the past year. According to its first-ever Gemini Report: Southeast Asia 2026, the region is adopting Gemini faster than any other Google application — and the Philippines is a notable case.
The report analyses user trends across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam to uncover new insights into how people across the region are adopting Gemini to work, create, and navigate their daily lives in the region. This builds on the 900 million monthly active users of the app globally, with this rapid growth driven by Southeast Asia’s young, mobile-first population and Gemini’s strong performance in local languages.
Philippines leads SEA in Gemini adoption among female users
While the AI’s popularity does transcend genders in the Philippines, it’s the only country in Southeast Asia in which there are more prompts from female users than males. In addition to that, it’s also been proven to be extremely useful in Filipinos’ skill development and everyday work tasks.
● Filipinos’ most trusted creative coach: One of the most prevalent uses of Gemini among Filipinos is as an assistant for writing and creative work, as well as a career coach helping them with work- and job-related decisions and questions. 24% of prompts from the Philippines are during the creative process, which is the most popular type of prompt, while 17% specifically get help for writing.
● Gemini, the customer-centric teammate: Another unique use case for Gemini is in the country’s business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, in which professionals use it to get help in customer service activities and producing marketing content. The Philippines logs three times more shares of prompts for customer support content than the regional average.
● The career coach: In addition to these cases, Filipinos also use Gemini to help them with career and work-related decisions and questions. Prompts related to job-seeking and staffing are more popular in the Philippines than anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
“We are so proud to see that Gemini has become the AI of choice for many users across Southeast Asia. What makes this region so remarkable is how naturally it has been woven into daily life. People aren’t just adapting to Gemini, they are using it on their own terms – in modalities they prefer, in languages they speak, and in contexts unique to their lives. The insights in the report demonstrates that AI is no longer a tool for tomorrow, but an indispensable companion that is already shaping how we work, study, and live today,” said Sapna Chadha, Vice President for Southeast Asia and South Asia Frontier, Google.
Popular among the youth and native speakers in SEA
The report dives deeper into how people across the region are adopting Gemini. Here are some of the key findings:
● Youths are the power users: With nearly 40% of the region’s demographic under 25, younger, digital-native users are leading adoption. They make more requests, engage in longer conversations with Gemini, and write significantly more detailed prompts than other age groups.
● A pro in local languages: Gemini’s success in the region comes down to local fluency. Nearly 70% of prompts in the region are submitted in native languages, led by Vietnam (89%), Thailand (87%), and Indonesia (84%), making Gemini the most searched-for AI assistant in these countries. Leading AI think-tank, AI Singapore, also named Gemini the best-performing large language model (LLM) for Southeast Asian languages overall on its Southeast Asia Holistic Evaluation of Language Models (SEA-HELM) evaluation benchmark. “AI adoption happens when technology feels native, not translated. In a region as linguistically rich as Southeast Asia, models must understand local context deeply to be used effectively. Gemini’s strong standing on our SEA-HELM evaluation framework demonstrates its ability to navigate the complex linguistic realities of the region. These results underscore why rigorous evaluation and continued development of multilingual AI remain important for advancing AI adoption across Southeast Asia,” said Dr Leslie Teo, Senior Director of AI Products, AI Singapore.
● Multi-modal and on-the-go: Almost 3 in 4 Gemini requests across the region come from mobile devices.. Because users can interact comfortably in their native languages, they are bypassing keyboards, relying on voice commands, photos, and video uploads for more than 4 out of 10 of their prompts. Specifically, 1 in 10 users rely entirely on voice features like Gemini Live.
● A creative collaborator: About 40% of queries ask Gemini to generate entirely new outputs, like images, music, videos, and writing documents. People across Southeast Asia have generated 5 billion images with Nano Banana, Google’s image generation model, over the past year. They have also generated almost 1 million songs since the introduction of Lyria 3, Gemini’s music generation model, in Southeast Asia.
● Research and thought partner: People frequently rely on Gemini as a research assistant to summarize dense documents and structure messy data, or as a thought partner for advice, opinions, and recommendations, like birthday gift ideas or travel destination options, logical reasoning, professional advice, and step-by-step troubleshooting.
Unlocking the future of Gemini
Google is committed to making Gemini the most helpful AI assistant for Southeast Asia’s 600 million people. The next step is bringing the power of AI agents safely and securely to consumers. This includes Gemini Spark, which transforms Gemini from an assistant that answers questions into an active partner that completes real work on your behalf.
Spark is a 24/7 personal AI agent designed to proactively manage tasks and help users navigate their digital lives. Deeply integrated with Workspace tools like Gmail, Docs, and Slides, this cloud-based agent works in the background — even when a laptop is closed or a phone is locked.
Gemini Spark is currently available in English to Google AI Ultra subscribers. It will also roll out in all local languages in Southeast Asia to Ultra subscribers starting this week.
This rollout builds on a rapidly expanding suite of Gemini features designed for everyday utility:
● Visual creativity and learning: Tools like Nano Banana, Omni, and Canvas help users generate images and dive deeper into complex topics.
● Personalized AI: Custom Gems allow users to tailor Gemini for specific personal and professional goals.
● In-app shopping: In Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, users can now go from brainstorming to browsing directly within the chat, complete with shoppable product listings, comparison tables, and pricing from across the web.
Access the full report The Gemini Report, Southeast Asia 2026: https://grow.google/intl/en_ph/gemini-report/
