Thailand has the world’s highest usage of Google’s Gemini Nano Banana for image generation, indicating a high level of creativity among Thai users. However, the country still lags behind its neighbours in using AI to boost productivity and economic value.
Saruj Thipsena, country manager of Google Cloud Thailand, said the finding came from the recently released Gemini Report for Southeast Asia 2026, which highlights Thailand’s strong creative economy and the “super creative” nature of Thai users.
“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 during a panel discussion titled “Rebooting Thailand’s Future: Digital, Data and the Next Growth Catalysts” at Thailand Focus 2026.
However, he said Thailand was clearly behind neighbouring Singapore in using AI for work, including data analysis, streamlining workflows and improving efficiency and productivity, or what he described as “AI at Work”.
Mr Saruj also highlighted how Vietnamese users are making clever use of AI.
“People in Vietnam use AI very cleverly. They use AI to bridge the language gap between Vietnamese and English to support their work and businesses,” he said.
Thailand, meanwhile, has good digital infrastructure that is developing rapidly, along with strong momentum in technology adoption, particularly in daily life, he said.
“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.”
Mr Saruj said the value of AI came from three main areas: its ability to process data more effectively than humans, its capacity to streamline and transform business processes, and its potential to distribute 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,” he said.
Mr Saruj also said technology was creating a more equal 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.”
Teeranun Srihong, chairman of the Digital Economy Promotion Agency, said Thailand had made significant progress in digital infrastructure and high-speed networks, describing them as a “digital highway” that was sufficiently developed to attract major global cloud service providers, or hyperscalers, to invest in the country.
However, Thailand ranked 37th out of 70 countries in the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) digital competitiveness ranking, while ranking 29th in technology and infrastructure. This shows good infrastructure alone is not enough to strengthen competitiveness, he said.
Thailand needs to accelerate the application of data and increase investment in AI, as AI is becoming a critical technology affecting productivity, Mr Teeranun said.