AI adoption enabling significant growth in ASEAN for Salesforce

While the opportunities among large enterprises are high, Pravar Gautam, Vice President, Alliances & Channel ASEAN, Salesforce also highlighted that the midmarket also presents quite a significant opportunity for Salesforce.

AI adoption in Southeast Asia continues to increase positively in the workplace. Despite initial security concerns and the impact of AI on the workforce, an agentic AI ASEAN survey by Salesforce revealed that AI adoption is actually increasing in the workplace.

Part of this is being driven by employees’ personal use of AI tools outside of work. Specifically, out of 4,062 knowledge workers surveyed in ASEAN, 66% say their personal use of AI has increased their confidence in using it professionally. This trust and confidence are especially pronounced amongst Gen Z, where 72% report high confidence in using AI at work, and 69% say they trust it.

The survey also found that knowledge workers in ASEAN are ready to collaborate with AI, provided there is transparency and access to quality tools. The top three factors that would increase their confidence using AI agents at work are transparency and control over AI agents’ actions (43%), easy access to approved, high-quality tools (42%) and understanding into skills workers should develop (42%).

Growth in ASEAN

This is also among the reasons why Salesforce believes it has a huge opportunity in the ASEAN region. With a focus on delivering more value to customers, the tech company recently refreshed its partner program to simplify the AI journey for customers as well.

In a conversation with CRN Asia, Pravar Gautam, Vice President, Alliances & Channel ASEAN, Salesforce, shared that Salesforce focuses on six primary markets - Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Gautam pointed out that every industry and every market within ASEAN is showing a massive AI opportunity, regardless of industry or horizontals.

“We're seeing specific traction in a few areas. Financial services are leading the charge, where you have banks, insurers, and fintechs. They are all looking to provide more personalized and customized experiences to their customers. And agentic AI is a perfect fit for that. So, we're working with Techcombank and Vietcombank in Vietnam. We're working with SingLife in Singapore and with BPI (Bank of the Philippines Island) in the Philippines. We're also seeing huge traction in travel, transport, and hospitality. And we're seeing great examples on both sides of the region,” he said.

In Singapore, Salesforce collaborates with Singapore Airlines (SIA) on AI-powered customer service applications. He added that Salesforce is also co-creating applications with SIA specifically for the airline industry. Philippines Airlines has also chosen Salesforce to revolutionize their customer experience.

“We're also seeing massive momentum in retail and consumer goods as customer expectations continue to rise. Retailers are increasingly turning to AI agents to deliver more seamless and connected customer experiences. And the same in manufacturing. Given the macroeconomic conditions right now, manufacturers are relying more on AI to make sure that they drive more operational efficiency, and they build more resilient and intelligent supply chains,” he said.

For Gautam, wherever there is a need to drive scale, customer impact and efficiency, Salesforce and its partners have a role to play.

Midmarket Opportunity

While the opportunities among large enterprises are high, Gautam also highlighted that the midmarket also presents quite a significant opportunity for Salesforce. As this is often an underserved market, Gautam explained that these companies will likely face the same AI disruption as large enterprises. However, they often don't have the same level of resources, the same level of expertise to navigate such disruption.

“This is where our partners can truly play a role. From an internal perspective, we have aligned our sales and partner teams to focus on the midmarket opportunity. We've brought together a set of partners to focus on this opportunity that has the right capabilities. From an internal perspective, it's really about making sure we have the right coverage with the right partners with the right capabilities all geared towards this market,” he said.

Gautam shared that the opportunity for this particular segment is also more compelling.

“Because if you think about it, if you have an agent that can deliver customer service, sales processes, your operational workflows, seamlessly without the need for you to add large teams, this is a game changer for these organizations. And they can get the same level of enterprise grade capabilities from us at the speed and scale and size that actually matters to them,” he added.

With Agentforce now available in five local languages in the region, customers can deploy it in the language of their teams, and partners can support them to deliver Agentforce in those local languages.

“This removes a barrier that previously existed. Partners have a significant role in this market. And this is where they can truly act as a force multiplier. So, we are very bullish on the midmarket opportunity. And if you combine the reach of our partners with the platform accessibility, the opportunity becomes very tangible and significant,” Gautam said.

With the midmarket opportunity available for partners of all sizes, Gautam mentioned that Salesforce is currently working with a number of its large and mid-size consulting partners on this opportunity.

“We're also working with a number of our resellers that have a role to play in the midmarket. We're working with managed service providers and also working with our ISP partners. To be able to tap this opportunity, you need the right type of partner coverage, and the right partners with the right capabilities. So, we are and we have the partner ecosystem in the region to be able to go after that opportunity,” he concluded.