Google, Temasek, and Bain Project Southeast Asia Online Spending Will Hit $368B in 2026

Online spending across Southeast Asia will rise about 17% in 2026 to $368B, a slight slowdown from the prior year, according to a joint report by Google, Temasek Holdings Pte, and Bain & Co. Private tech funding in the region surged more than fivefold in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, driven heavily by data center construction deals involving operators such as STT GDC and DayOne Data Centers Ltd. Across the region of about 700M people, e-commerce and delivery platforms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Sea Ltd.'s Shopee, Grab Holdings Ltd., GoTo Group, Trip-com Group Ltd., and Traveloka are using AI to target consumers and offset pressure from elevated inflation, interest rates, and energy price shocks. The report found that about 62% of Southeast Asian consumers are more confident using AI to make critical decisions than they were a year ago, while AI-driven ad revenue is pushing online media toward its strongest growth pace in at least five years.