Vietnamese firms accelerate AI adoption amid untapped potential

Vietnamese firms accelerate AI adoption amid untapped potential

While AI adoption is growing among Vietnamese businesses, many are not yet using its full potential, highlighting opportunities for deeper integration.

At AWS Cloud Day Vietnam 2025 on September 18 in Hanoi, AWS and Strand Partners released the results of a survey examining AI adoption, innovation, and economic competitiveness in Vietnam. The survey gathered insights from 1,000 businesses and 1,000 citizens, assessing how companies and individuals are adapting to AI.

Nick Bonstow, director at Strand Partners, said, “We are at a pivotal moment in the digital transformation journey for Vietnam, with AI adoption rates accelerating significantly.”

The survey found that 18 per cent of Vietnamese firms now use AI regularly, up from 13 per cent a year ago, representing growth of 39 per cent on-year.

Companies that have adopted AI are seeing tangible benefits: 61 per cent report increased revenue, with an average gain of 16 per cent.

Eric Yeo, Country general manager, AWS Vietnam at AWS Cloud Day 2025. Photo: AWS

66 per cent of those who have adopted AI have already experienced productivity gains. These productivity gains are coming from a wide range of sources, especially through enhancing customer service and relationships (35 per cent), and the automation of routine tasks (29 per cent).

Nick Bonstow, however, admitted that while AI adoption is increasingly widespread around Vietnam, many are not yet harnessing AI for its more advanced purposes. 74 per cent of businesses remain focused primarily on more basic uses of AI, and on incremental gains (e.g., driving efficiencies and streamlining processes), rather than innovation (e.g., developing new products or disrupting industries).

A smaller share, 17 per cent of Vietnamese businesses, have advanced to the intermediate stage of AI integration. And only 9 per cent of Vietnam companies have reached the most transformative stage, where they are using AI for its most advanced purposes.

Regarding startups, they aren’t just using AI – they’re building entirely new products and business models around it that would have been impossible just years ago. 55 per cent of startups say they are leveraging AI in some way throughout their business.

31 per cent have AI at the core of their business proposition. 35 per cent of startups are developing new AI-driven products and services. Looking ahead, 91 per cent of startups believe AI will fundamentally transform their industry within the next five years.

For large enterprises, their adoption of AI is strong, but their adoption is more basic and focused on incremental gains such as driving efficiencies, rather than innovation. 41 per cent of large enterprises are using AI, compared with 55 per cent of startups.

"This risks a two-tier AI economy, where startups are surging ahead with AI integration and adoption. If not addressed, this two-tier AI economy – with tech-driven startups outpacing larger enterprises in AI innovation – could shape Vietnam's economic future," said Nick Bonstow.

According to the representative of Strand Partners, moving beyond basic AI use for businesses of all sizes is key to unlocking the full benefits of AI for Vietnam’s economy and society. The potential economic impact is significant; in 2023, cloud and cloud-enabled AI contributed $1.5 billion to Vietnam’s GDP.

Further research estimates that across the Asia-Pacific region, cloud and cloud-enabled AI together could contribute up to $2.9 trillion, with $203 billion coming from AI alone.

Despite these, Nick Bonstow shared that businesses said that several barriers are limiting them from adopting the technology more profoundly. They include lack of skilled workers a top reported barrier, compliance and perceived costs, regulatory uncertainty.

"Vietnam has the right tools and the ambition to lead in AI," said Eric Yeo, Country general manager, AWS Vietnam. "We encourage policymakers and industry leaders to take action to unlock Vietnam’s AI potential across both startups and large enterprises, by boosting digital skills training, providing clarity in regulation and adopting a pro-growth approach, and finally by modernising the public sector technology."

Photo: AWS

Yeo noted that the AI trend is clear: acceleration. AWS is committed to supporting businesses in Vietnam to drive long-term impact and help grow the local economy. AWS has been at the forefront of the Vietnam's digital transformation journey since establishing its local presence in 2017.

Through strategic infrastructure investments including AWS Outposts (2021), an upcoming AWS Local Zone in Hanoi, and Edge locations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (2022), AWS has built a robust foundation for ultra-low latency workloads across the country.

Over 100,000 individuals have been trained in cloud and AI in Vietnam since 2017. And in 2023, AWS rolled out the ‘AI Ready’ initiative, offering free AI and generative AI courses – 30 in Vietnamese to date – to help learners gain in-demand skills and access career opportunities.

"We are focused on helping organisations of all sizes across Vietnam to migrate IT workloads to cloud to support their digital-first strategies, and accelerate AI adoption and innovation end-to-end, from experimentation to real life applications," said Yeo.

"AI is the biggest opportunity since cloud computing, and possibly since the internet. We look forward to collaborating with governments, businesses, and startups to unlock Vietnam’s AI potential," he added.

At present, AWS is driving innovation with organisations across Vietnam, from fast-moving startups to leading brands and public sector organisations, such as AI Hay, Techcombank, VIB, VPBank, Gamota, Katalon, TymeX.

For instance, AI Hay is a Vietnam-first, AI-powered platform revolutionizing knowledge discovery through social, community-driven GenAI search. Since launch, the app has now had over 15 million downloads and processed over 100 million questions monthly, serving millions of Vietnamese daily.

Elsewhere, Techcombank, one of Vietnam’s leading banks, is accelerating digital banking with Amazon Q Developer. An initial pilot with 50 developers delivered strong results, 80 per cent satisfaction and clear gains in productivity and code quality, prompting a rapid scale-up to 600 developers. This has now been rolled out to more than 1,000 developers across TCB.

By using features like Code Suggestions and AI Commit Message, Techcombank cut development time, saving 572 days of manual effort in just three months, a 30 per cent productivity boost.

According to Eric Yeo, "Vietnam businesses show strong AI innovation adoption, demonstrating significant economic potential. However, our research reveals critical barriers, particularly for larger enterprises looking to deepen AI implementation."

"To maintain Vietnam's competitive position globally, government and industry must address these specific challenges. AWS remains committed to accelerating GenAI adoption through our infrastructure investments and skills training initiatives," he added.

VIR