Lenovo CIO Playbook 2026: 96% of ASEAN enterprises to boost AI investment

Enterprises across Asia Pacific are accelerating their shift from AI experimentation to execution strategies. According to the Lenovo CIO Playbook 2026, 96 percent of organizations plan to increase AI investments.

On average, organizations expect AI spending to grow by 15 percent over the next 12 months.
ASEAN Plus mirrors this momentum with 96 percent of organizations also planning to increase AI investments. Sumir Bhatia from Lenovo said AI decisions are now being made at the core of enterprise strategy.

The differentiator will be how effectively organizations integrate AI into infrastructure, operations, and security. 88 percent of Asia Pacific organizations expect a positive ROI from AI in 2026.
The average anticipated return is 2.8x or 2.85 dollars for every 1 dollar invested. Interest in Agentic AI is expected to double over the next 12 months across the region.

Only 10 percent of organizations consider themselves ready for scaled Agentic AI implementation currently. 41 percent require more than 12 months to meaningfully scale Agentic AI deployments.

86 percent of organizations across Asia Pacific now incorporate on premises or edge environments. This makes hybrid AI the default model for enterprise AI deployments in the region.

In ASEAN Plus, 81 percent of organizations prefer hybrid AI architectures for balance. By 2030, 75 percent of AI compute will be dedicated to inferencing with distributed edge infrastructure.