IBM predicts enterprises in Asia Pacific to move beyond experimentation in 2025

IBM’s APAC AI Outlook 2025 report revealed that the race towards a more AI-powered future will set the stage for agentic AI, establishing a new equilibrium within organizations between humans and technology.

Enterprises in the Asia Pacific are expected to move beyond AI experimentation to maximize the impact of their AI investments. This is what IBM believes will be the key focus for enterprises in 2025 as they continue long-term benefits from their AI investments.

The APAC AI Outlook 2025, which was conducted by Ecosystm and commissioned by IBM, revealed cost-effective AI solutions will be key in 2025. Given the increased investments in AI in the past two years, the focus now is shifting from low-risk, non-core use cases, to deploying GenAI in core business functions for competitive advantage and improved ROI.

According to the report, nearly 60% of surveyed organizations across the Asia-Pacific region anticipate realising the benefits of their AI investments within two to five years. Only 11% expect returns within the next two years.

[Related: IBM wants to empower its partner network in Asia Pacific]

“In 2024, experimentation and trend-chasing defined the AI landscape. In 2025, the focus will shift to delivering tangible value through robust infrastructure, efficient operations, and skilled talent. Success will hinge on a strategic approach: clear outcomes, strong data management, and governance,” stated the report.

As such, the primary focus of AI investments for APAC organizations in 2025 will centre on enhancing customer experience (21%), back-office business process automation (18%) and sales automation and customer lifecycle management (16%). However, key challenges in data complexity, high cost of implementation and solution as well as the limited number of use cases defined need to be addressed first.

For Dickson Woo, Managing Director and Technology Leader for IBM Malaysia, strong public-private collaboration within the digital ecosystem will be crucial for this transition, ushering in a new era of technological advancement, positioning AI as a true enabler of sustainable growth and a competitive advantage.

In a conversation with CRN Asia, Woo mentioned that CEOs in the region are also beginning to realize that by adopting AI, it serves as a competitive edge. Therefore, AI now becomes a more serious discussion for them. He added that a lot of investment has been also parked aside to look at AI deployment adoption as a competitive edge.

“Companies have to realize that by doing the right AI, they will gain a lot of business benefits. This is the trend we are seeing not just in Malaysia, but in the region as well,” said Woo.

The APAC AI Outlook report also identified five strategic trends shaping the region’s AI future – Strategic AI, Rightsizing AI, Unified AI, Agentic AI and the Human-Centric AI Approach.

Breaking down these five trends, IBM believes that organizations will adopt a Strategic AI approach in 2025, prioritising projects based on feasibility and business impact. Enterprises that are already in their AI journey would most likely be looking to have longer-term AI strategies. As such, they will want to scale AI through use cases that maximize revenue opportunities and ROI.

Organizations are also expected to focus on smaller specialized open-source models as a powerful alternative for many AI applications. IBM believes these purpose-built models will be in demand, including those designed for local languages, nuanced regional contexts and simpler computational tasks. These Rightsizing AI models require significantly less training data and generate a smaller carbon footprint than the large language models that have so far dominated AI discussions.

For greater visibility, governance and seamless AI integration, businesses in the region will increasingly leverage open-source AI models to drive innovation and efficiency for a Unified AI. Put simply, having a unified AI with robust orchestration tools will streamline the management around these solutions, offering flexibility, cost-effectiveness, improved security and seamless integrations between different vendors.

Another trend expected to take centre stage in 2025 is Agentic AI, which is a combination of AI with automation. Businesses are aware of what AI can do. Hence, they will now want the technology to autonomously execute tasks as well as collaborate with human workers and drive value across the business. Once internal guardrails are established, agentic AI has the potential to achieve significant gains in operational efficiency, customer experience and decision-making.

Lastly, the next phase of AI will most likely be driven by human-centric innovation. IBM believes the Human-Centric AI approach will become a powerful tool for employees to augment their roles, automate routine tasks, and unlock new opportunities for creativity and innovation.

Relying on the partner ecosystem

Woo acknowledged that as a technology provider, it's hard to produce a one-size-fits-all solution for all businesses in their AI journey. As such, this is where he believes IBM’s partner ecosystem plays an important role in ensuring businesses are able to get the right technology and solutions for their AI journey.

“In IBM Malaysia, we are working very closely with our partners. These include solution partners, solution providers and system integrators to provide a more holistic end-to-end solution. In the field of AI, we do have the technology, but we still need partners to sometimes understand the customer environment. Our partners help tailor-made customizing to deliver the actual solutions for the customer. As such, the partner ecosystem plays very important for everyone,” explained Woo.

Interestingly, Woo also mentioned that partners are also on a journey with their customers and IBM, especially in enabling AI.

“Partners who are already into the field of public data, science or automation, it will be easier and faster for them to grasp AI. It really depends on the maturity continuum of the partnership. Some partners can really deliver the message and represent IBM very well. However, some will probably have to go through that journey of enablement training. At IBM, we do provide that series of enablement to upskill and to train up our partners so that they are more equipped, not only from the product selling, solution selling, but also in terms of implementation and services,” said Woo.

Looking at Malaysia specifically, Woo hopes that with the increased awareness, more organizations will see the AI trend as an imperative and the adoption of AI will become more prevalent. Woo believes AI should no longer be a side or afterthought topic but become a main board discussion.

“With the realization of the benefits of adopting AI, we are hoping more organizations will embark on this journey and work together with IBM to provide that value to helping them resolve some of the most challenging business challenges,” he concluded.