If you walk around and really observe your surroundings, you will surely start to notice the flood of AI-generated graphics being used by local company entrepreneurs. AWS Malaysia in their study results with Strand Partners shared their study results with 1000 local companies and 1000 members of the public found encouraging developments regarding the use of AI for their business or company operations.
For the year 2026, around 3.4 million or 38% of local companies are now using at least one AI technology consistently, an increase compared to the rate of 27% in 2025. This adoption rate is an encouraging increase, but most of them are basic applications such as virtual assistants that function to carry out routine tasks. Only around 19% of companies actually have their own AI strategy and have successfully optimized various processes.
In the results of this study, the average person thinks that local software providers and local AI technology developers are important for the adoption of AI in their company. This may be due to the easy access for companies to deal directly with providers. In fact, around 57% of companies obtain AI technology from external providers, rather than developing it themselves. This is seen as faster and more effective, while allowing companies to focus on more important operations.
Tight Governance Aspects Are Not Barriers to Progress
The sectors that lead the adoption rate of AI in Malaysia are the financial services and manufacturing sectors. This finding is closely related to the tight governance aspect because the financial sector is a sector that strongly prioritizes clear accountability, monitoring, and processes for the use of AI. In simple terms, with the existence of scope, laws, process limitations, all of these allow for the controlled progress of AI. The manufacturing sector is still in its early exploration stage due to different challenges faced such as resource constraints.
Furthermore, around 72% of companies stated that they will expand the use of AI when the public sector more widely implements AI in their affairs. In fact, 74% of companies also want the government to be more active in accelerating the widespread adoption of AI. This year has also seen various AI-related initiatives being taken by the government and such positive developments will be able to advance the adoption of AI in the future.
In addition, AWS Malaysia also announced the availability of Amazon Quick for local users. Amazon Quick is an AI agent that can be accessed by AWS users, and more than just answering questions, it can also build dashboards for business operations, perform procedures, perform analysis and more.
