Patchy acceptance of AI in Asia Pacific: Salesforce

Source: Salesforce. The 3rd Asia Pacific AI Readiness Index charts AI readiness at the business and government levels.

The 2023 Asia Pacific AI Readiness Index from Salesforce shows a growing divide between economies based on their readiness to adopt AI technology.

The 3rd edition of the bi-annual composite index measures businesses’ and governments’ multifaceted AI readiness and its impact on socioeconomic opportunities through 15 statistical indicators. The report also provides recommendations for businesses and governments to help operationalise and maximise the use of AI.

Of the 12 countries surveyed, all saw gains in AI readiness driven by government efforts. Indonesia and Thailand introduced national AI strategies, while Singapore’s public sector digital transformation, open government data policies, and more have helped the country retain the top position since 2019, when the report series began.

Highlights include:

Overall AI readiness: Singapore leads the region (70.1), followed by Japan (59.8), and China (59.7).

Business AI readiness: Singapore again leads the region (53.6), followed by China, (43.1), and South Korea (42.7).

Government AI readiness: Singapore is in the lead (86.5), followed by Australia (77.7) and Japan (77.5).

Salesforce said the adoption and utilisation of generative AI requires a level of AI readiness, which includes:

Infrastructure: Generative AI models require massive computational resources and specialised hardware.

Data: Generative AI models require large amounts of high-quality training data to learn meaningful patterns and generate realistic content.

Workforce development: Developing and deploying generative AI models require expertise in AI and machine learning.

McKinsey projects that generative AI could grow the Asia-Pacific region’s economy by US$2.6 trillion, to US$4.4 trillion annually by 2030.