Thailand should urgently adopt artificial intelligence (AI) to become an "AI-first" country, allowing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to increase productivity and drive GDP growth amid global trade challenges, says Microsoft Thailand.
The AI Maturity Matrix, a Boston Consulting Group study that assessed 73 global economies, identified six archetypes of AI economic development and potential.
Thailand is among the 20 countries in the largest group of "gradual practitioners" adopting AI.
Only 10% of the countries rank as being leading AI pioneers, including Canada, China, Singapore, the UK and the US.
Malaysia is defined as a "steady contender" and Vietnam a "rising contender".
"Thailand needs to rush to adopt AI to become an AI-first country," Dhanawat Suthumpun, managing director of Microsoft (Thailand), said during the recent Microsoft SMEs AI Skills Summit.
If it does not adopt AI within a year, the country will lose a lot of opportunities to competitors, said Mr Dhanawat.
The Singaporean government has spent S$150 million (3.79 billion baht) to encourage SMEs to embrace AI by subsidising half of each SME's investment in AI adoption.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has established an AI centre of excellence.
"You can see in the past two years how fast AI technology has developed and how active neighbouring countries are in the AI race," he said.
The gap between countries rapidly adopting AI and those that do not will widen further, said Mr Dhanawat.
He said Microsoft is in discussions with local state agencies to establish a centre of excellence in AI to be a sandbox for providing technology as an "asset" for specific sectors, enabling SMEs to easily access AI. These sectors could be agriculture, tourism or healthcare, said Mr Dhanawat.
AI can address many challenges for the country, from GDP growth to an aged population and education, he said.
The availability of agentic AI can help reduce the need for people in certain tasks, potentially increasing productivity, said Mr Dhanawat.
As the ratio of teacher per student in Thailand is 1:50, AI could assist teachers and provide personalised learning capabilities to students.
He cited an IDC survey of 4,000 respondents worldwide that found 75% of business leaders had adopted generative AI (GenAI), and companies around the world are estimated to receive 3.7 times return on investment (ROI) from investing in GenAI.
"Frontrunner companies will be able to gain 10 times ROI," he said.
To accelerate AI skills, Microsoft has a mission to train 1 million people in Thailand. The company has invested more than US$1 million to localise its AI learning platform, covering more than 200 courses.
Thailand has 3.5 million SMEs that contribute 35% of GDP. If they use AI to increase productivity, and this results in Thai GDP gaining more than two percentage points, it would help lift total GDP growth to 10%, said Mr Dhanawat.
Wichian Premchaiswadi, vice-chairman of the Digital Council of Thailand, said at the same seminar Thailand needs an "AI agent library" for specific industries for use cases to find ROI.
The library could offer help to SMEs in targeted sectors, which could follow such use cases, he said. If the use cases prove successful for business, banks would likely increase their access to loans, said Mr Wichian.
Akkarapol Sukta, vice-chairman of the Institute of Information and Communication Technology for Industry at the Federation of Thai Industries, said this year 6,000 factories have closed.
Thailand must educate SMEs on the importance of using technology by offering them incentives to adopt AI, he said.
Ubonrat Khaphaeng, assistant managing director for corporate communications and sustainable development at the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand, said the bank allocated a 30-billion-baht fund under a loan campaign for SMEs for business improvement.
Vorapoj Prasanpanich, assistant director at the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion, said in 2023 around 100,000 SMEs improved their business performance.
"We need to improve their skills in multiple layers and use experts to assist SMEs in AI transformation," said Mr Vorapoj.
