Thailand has the world's highest use of Google's Gemini Nano Banana for image generation, ahead of India, according to the Gemini Report for Southeast Asia 2026. But while Thai users are embracing AI for creative purposes, the country remains behind neighbours such as Singapore in applying the technology to workplace productivity, data analysis and business efficiency. Saruj Thipsena, country manager of Google Cloud Thailand, raised the findings during a Thailand Focus 2026 panel discussion, "Rebooting Thailand's Future: Digital, Data and the Next Growth Catalysts". "Thailand has the highest usage of Gemini's Nano Banana for generating images in the world, even exceeding India. That is the level of creativity Thai people have," Mr Saruj said. Creativity is strong, workplace use lags The report highlighted Thailand's strong creative economy and what Mr Saruj called the "super creative" nature of Thai users. However, he said Singapore was more advanced in using AI at work, including for data analysis, streamlining workflows, improving efficiency and raising productivity. Vietnamese users were also making clever use of AI, he said, particularly to overcome the language barrier between Vietnamese and English in support of their work and businesses. Thailand has rapidly developing digital infrastructure and strong momentum in technology adoption, especially in everyday life, Mr Saruj said. The challenge is turning that readiness into higher-value economic activity. "The challenge is how do we capitalise on this infrastructure and people's readiness and deliver high value from technology. That is where the next curve that Thailand is going to be." Business decisions now matter most Mr Saruj said AI's value lay in three main areas: handling data more effectively than people, streamlining and transforming business processes, and distributing knowledge to people and businesses. "With AI and digital technology, data silos are no longer a challenge. The biggest challenge is now on the business side, not the technology side," he said. "Technology is beyond ready, but businesses need to have the right mandate to drive technology adoption." Mr Saruj said technology was also helping to level the playing field. "Three years ago, if you wanted to prototype an idea, you might have had to take six months to develop software to support it. Now, six weeks is too long to test your idea." Infrastructure alone is not enough Teeranun Srihong, chairman of the Digital Economy Promotion Agency, said Thailand's digital infrastructure and high-speed networks had become a sufficiently developed "digital highway" to attract major global cloud service providers, or hyperscalers, to invest in the country. Yet Thailand ranked 37th among 70 countries in the International Institute for Management Development's digital competitiveness ranking, despite placing 29th for technology and infrastructure, he said. That showed infrastructure alone would not strengthen competitiveness. Thailand needed to speed up its use of data and increase AI investment, Mr Teeranun said, as AI was becoming critical to productivity. Join the discussion? 28 August 2026
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