Google Says Native Languages Drive 70 Per Cent Of ASEAN Gemini Prompts
e27 reported that Google's Gemini Southeast Asia Report 2026 puts nearly 70 per cent of regional prompts in native languages and 75 per cent of requests on mobile devices. Absolute active-user totals, retention rates and paid-conversion data remain outside the report.
Google's Gemini Southeast Asia Report 2026 portrays Southeast Asia as one of Gemini's fastest-growing regional usage bases, e27 wrote.
Active users in the region more than doubled over the past year, the publication noted, though no absolute user count was disclosed.
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam were listed as six of Gemini's largest regional user bases.
Without a user total, there is no direct public adoption comparison with ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic's Claude, Meta AI or China-linked assistants.
Native-Language Prompts Drive Gemini Use In Southeast Asia
Nearly 70 per cent of input across the six markets comes in native languages.
Vietnam led the language-use figures at 89 per cent, followed by Thailand at 87 per cent and Indonesia at 84 per cent, based on the dataset cited by e27.
Google's dataset also characterises Southeast Asia as a region of more than 600 million people and hundreds of languages and dialects, with nearly 40 per cent of the population under 25.
Mobile Requests Make Up 75 Per Cent Of Gemini Activity
Mobile devices account for most Gemini requests in Southeast Asia.
Google data cited by e27 show that 75 per cent of regional requests come from mobile devices, while more than 40 per cent of prompts involve voice commands, photos or video uploads.
Voice-only prompts made up 10 per cent of usage, the report found. e27 linked those figures to a regional internet economy shaped by mobile commerce, digital payments, short-form video and super-app behaviour, citing the Google, Temasek and Bain e-Conomy SEA estimate of US$263 billion in 2024 gross merchandise value.
SEA-HELM Benchmark Supports The Language Claim
For Gemini's regional language performance, Google pointed to the Southeast Asia Holistic Evaluation of Language Models, or SEA-HELM.
On that evaluation, Gemini ranked as the best-performing large language model for Southeast Asian languages, according to Google.
Dr Leslie Teo, Senior Director of AI Products at AI Singapore, said regional AI adoption depends on technology feeling "native, not translated".
He added that models need local context for learning, nuance-heavy writing and complex business brainstorming.
Gemini Spark Rolls Out In Local Languages
Gemini usage in the region extends beyond text answers.
Around 40 per cent of queries ask the app to generate outputs such as images, music, videos and documents, according to the report.
Users in Southeast Asia have generated five billion images with Nano Banana over the past year.
They have also created almost one million songs since Lyria 3 was introduced in the region, according to Google.
Gemini Spark, the agentic feature for completing tasks through Workspace tools, is rolling out in local languages to Gemini Advanced Ultra subscribers in Southeast Asia this week.
It works with Gmail, Docs and Slides and can operate in the background when a laptop is closed or a phone is locked.
The remaining public-record gaps are Gemini's absolute active-user count, retention rates, market-by-market revenue, paid-conversion rate for Gemini Advanced Ultra and direct usage comparisons with ChatGPT and Meta AI.
