Tech titan Google said active users of its Gemini artificial intelligence assistant in Southeast Asia more than doubled over the past year, driven by the region’s young, mobile-first population and preference for local-language and multimodal interactions.
The company released the findings on Tuesday, July 14, in its first Google Gemini Southeast Asia report, which examined mobile and Web usage in the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Gemini had more than 900 million monthly active users globally as of the second quarter of 2026, according to Google. The company also claimed that Gemini had become its most downloaded major app in Southeast Asia.
Google attributed Gemini’s growth in the region partly to its ability to process Southeast Asian languages. Gemini ranked as the best-performing large language model overall for Southeast Asian languages in AI Singapore’s Southeast Asian Holistic Evaluation of Language Models assessment.
Nearly 70% of prompts in the region were submitted in local languages. Vietnam recorded the highest share at 89%, followed by Thailand at 87% and Indonesia at 84%.
Users younger than 25 accounted for the largest share of Gemini usage in Southeast Asia. This age group represents about 40% of the region’s population, the report said.
Mobile devices generated nearly three out of four Gemini prompts in the region. More than 40% of prompts involved voice commands, photos, or video uploads instead of text, while 10% of users interacted with the assistant exclusively through voice-based features such as Gemini Live.
“What makes the SEA region so remarkable is how naturally Gemini 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,” said Sapna Chadha, Google vice president for Southeast Asia and South Asia Frontier.
PH users turn to Gemini for work, writing
The report found that 40% of queries in Southeast Asia asked Gemini to generate content such as images, music, videos, and documents.
Research-related activities, including retrieving facts and summarizing topics, accounted for 20% of prompts. Another 10% involved using Gemini as a “thought partner” or personal adviser, including requests for opinions and gift recommendations.
The remaining 30% covered various tasks, ranging from generating jokes to scheduling calendar events.
Usage patterns varied among countries. The Philippines was the only Southeast Asian market covered by the report where prompts from female users outnumbered those from male users. Many prompts submitted by female users involved academic work or writing.
Filipino users also turned to Gemini for customer support and career advice more frequently than users in other Southeast Asian countries.
Prompts involving customer complaints, order management, and other customer-support tasks were nearly three times more common in the Philippines than the regional average. Google said the pattern could be linked to the country’s business process outsourcing industry.
Job-seeking and staffing-related prompts were also more common in the Philippines than in other markets covered by the report.
Vietnam recorded the highest share of academic prompts, while Malaysia led in image-generation requests. Thailand had the largest share of lifestyle-related queries.
Google expands agentic AI, regional partnerships
Google said it plans to support Gemini’s regional growth through new features and partnerships with universities, educators, telecommunications companies, and other organizations.
Among the features highlighted was Gemini Spark, a personal AI agent integrated with Google Workspace applications such as Gmail, Docs, and Slides. Google said the agent could perform background tasks even when a user’s laptop was closed or phone was locked.
Gemini Spark was initially available only in English to Google AI Ultra subscribers. Google said it would begin rolling out support for local Southeast Asian languages to Ultra subscribers during the week of July 14.
The company is also working with public universities, educators, and mobile operators in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia on AI literacy programs. In Indonesia, Google has partnered with telecommunications companies to bundle Google AI Plus with mobile data packages.
“But all this is just one piece of a much grander vision that we have. As we look ahead, our goal is to invest in building out a long-term product roadmap to ensure that Gemini becomes the most helpful assistant for SEA’s 600 million users,” said Christine Chia, Google Asia-Pacific managing director for Search and Gemini Partnerships.
