Artificial intelligence adoption among venture capital and private equity-backed firms jumped to 71 per cent this year in Bangkok, up from 39 per cent a year earlier.

The headline surge conceals narrow implementation, with only 17 per cent of surveyed companies embedding artificial intelligence into their core business operations.

Data released by the International Finance Corporation at the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings shows that more than half of adopting businesses still restrict deployments to isolated operational functions. The survey sampled 1,600 private equity and venture capital firms to evaluate how early-stage and portfolio enterprises deploy automated tools. Improved productivity ranked as the primary driver, cited by 54 per cent of respondents, yet operational bottlenecks persist across developing markets.

Human capital constraints remain the primary hurdle to enterprise rollouts across emerging regions. More than 40 per cent of non-adopters identified acute skills shortages as their primary barrier, while broader institutional capacity deficits continue to stall deployments outside basic software tools.

Enterprise operators in Southeast Asia and South Asia frequently encounter tools designed for Western data sets and cost structures. Without local tuning, generic generative platforms fail to handle regional dialects, local commercial registries, and fragmented banking APIs. The practical value for regional businesses depends on engineering lightweight, localized models rather than purchasing expensive enterprise subscriptions that internal teams cannot maintain.

Fintech operators are focusing on targeted agents to resolve transaction delays for small and medium-sized enterprises. Cross-border payments and remittance channels across developing corridors remain plagued by settlement delays and excessive processing fees.

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