Business leaders and IT decision-makers confirm the accelerating shift toward ROI-driven-AI investments as organisations increase AI spending by 3.3x in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) and 2.7x in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN+), according to a report from Lenovo.
Commissioned by Lenovo with insights by IDC, the study is based on a global survey of more than 2,900 respondents, including more than 900 IT and business decision-makers (ITBDMs) from 12 APAC markets.
Despite the gradual rise in AI spending, AI adoption in ASEAN+ remains in the early stages, with 47% of organisations either evaluating or planning to implement AI within the next 12 months.
This is lower than both APAC (56%) and global (49%) averages, with ROI challenges emerging as a key barrier to faster adoption.
Singapore leads as the regional hub with advanced AI maturity and infrastructure, while other ASEAN+ nations are still in the early stages of adoption due to constraints in resources and expertise.
Delivering ROI for AI is a long-term endeavor that requires balancing AI experiments with those that can be scaled.
APAC firms expect a 3.6x ROI on average from their AI projects, which requires a measured approach to scaling AI and building internal capabilities.
ASEAN+ gradual pace reflects a focus on optimising supply chains, improving regulatory compliance, and boosting employee productivity while overcoming business challenges such as data management, AI expertise, and data security.
Ethical issues and biases remain the top AI risks this year, yet only 24% of organisations globally and 25% in APAC have fully enforced AI GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) policies.
In ASEAN+, 24% of CIOs report having fully implemented enterprise AI GRC policies, aligning closely with global and APAC trends. This underscores the urgent need for a structured approach to what has become the top priority for businesses in APAC.
Effective AI governance requires explainability, ethical frameworks, accountability, model governance, enhanced privacy, security and integrated human oversight.
“For 2025, governance, risk, and compliance have jumped 12 spots to become the top priority, highlighting the focus on secure and responsible AI,” said Sumir Bhatia, president of the Asia Pacific infrastructure solutions group at Lenovo.
“Employee productivity has also climbed from No. 7 to No. 2, underscoring its growing importance. Lenovo is committed to making AI accessible, ethical, and impactful—helping businesses of all sizes thrive in the AI era,” he said.
Generative AI is set to transform enterprise workflows, commanding 42% of AI implementation spend in 2025 in ASEAN+.
In APAC, IT operations emerged as the top use case, while in ASEAN+, customer service took the lead.
There is more focus on cybersecurity (No. 2) and software development (No. 3) in APAC.
For ASEAN+, IT ops (No. 2) and engineering/R&D (No. 3) take precedence.
The report reveals that 65% of organisations in APAC are opting for on-premise or hybrid solutions to power AI workloads.
This preference is driven by the need for secure, low-latency environments, and operational flexibility. Meanwhile, 19% still rely on public cloud services.
ASEAN+ reflects a similar trend, with 68% using hybrid or on-prem GPUs and CPUs for AI, while the remainder depend on public cloud.
