Next in digital: Indonesia’s marketers brace for AI-led discovery and owned-channel revival

Indonesia’s marketing landscape is heading into 2026 with a convergence of pressures and possibilities. Across agencies, leaders agree that AI has moved from a supporting tool to the centre of digital interaction. From generative engines and automated decision layers to autonomous agents embedded in platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram, AI now shapes how consumers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands. As third-party cookies fade and AI-powered search rises, visibility itself is shifting - no longer confined to traditional search rankings but expanding to “AI surfaces” such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

At the same time, the industry is entering a period of content acceleration and consumer fatigue. With messaging produced faster than ever, audiences are overwhelmed, prompting a renewed push toward fundamentals: strong copy, clear data, meaningful storytelling, and brand experiences that feel distinctly human.

Commerce is evolving just as quickly. Indonesia’s leadership in live shopping and TikTok’s firm position as a mainstream commerce engine are reshaping how discovery and conversion happen. Brands are also returning to owned channels - from loyalty-enabled websites to membership ecosystems - as marketplace fees rise and customer-data control becomes more valuable.

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Arianto Bigman, CEO of IDEOWORKS

The next major shift we’re seeing in Indonesia is the convergence of AI, first-party data, and immersive content formats - all accelerating at once.

AI is no longer a background tool - it’s quickly becoming the front-end of consumer interaction, from generative content to automated decision-making and even AI-assisted discovery. At the same time, with third-party cookies disappearing, brands are being pushed to build direct relationships with consumers through consent-based data collection. This is a big transition, especially in markets such as Indonesia where data maturity varies.

Add to that the explosive growth of social and video commerce - Indonesia now leads Southeast Asia in live shopping adoption - and you get a digital ecosystem that demands creativity, intelligence, and speed. At IDEOWORKS, a founding board member of the Strategic Asia Marketing Alliance (SAMA) since 2024, combining all the above elements with storytelling that touches people will be our direction.

In 2026, our focus will centre on three core pillars: creative automation, consumer insights, and commerce integration. We’re looking at platforms such as TikTok Shop, Google Performance Max, Meta Advantage+, and marketing automation tools not just as media delivery engines, but as environments where creative, data, and conversion intersect.

With the current economic uncertainties, especially in emerging markets, fixed annual budgets don’t give clients or agencies the responsiveness they need. That’s why we now build modular budget plans with quarterly checkpoints and around 15% agility buffers that allow us to reallocate based on what’s working in real time. Another important element is the innovation layer - allocating a small percentage of the budget (around 10%) to test new formats, channels, or AI-driven campaigns.

Elga Yulwardian, CEO of Ivosights

The next big wave of change will be the rise of agentic AI (some even refer to it as gigantic AI, highlighting the combination of multiple complex AI agents), hyper-personalised experiences, and the shift toward algo-customer behaviour.

Brands will no longer rely on traditional campaigns; instead, they will build intelligent ecosystems capable of reading emotions, context, and customer intent in real time.

This will transform customer engagement into something more predictive, automated, and measurable.

For 2026, we are prioritising tools and technologies such as: agentic AI, not only for automation business process, but also for creative generation, and decision engines; advanced social analytics using Plutchik and OCEAN frameworks through our social listening platform, Ripple10 v2; dynamic system modelling to predict demand and customer behaviour patterns; and AI-powered omnichannel contact centre through our platform Sociomile with autonomous agents across WhatsApp, Instagram, and marketplaces.

Our budgeting approach for 2026 follows a value-based allocation, prioritising investments in AI, automation, and operational efficiency. We are currently undergoing an internal AI and automation organisational transformation to ensure that Ivosights, as an entity, fully adapts to and thrives in the AI era. This transformation has directly shaped and influenced our 2026 budget plan.

Indra Jaya, CEO of Krona

In digital content creation, AI is speeding everything up - but we’re already seeing fatigue. People admire efficiency, yet they crave empathy, authenticity, and emotional connection. From our own observations, we frequently see comments such as, “I’m sick of AI-generated content like this.” To me, that’s a clear signal: relevance will belong to brands that still feel human.

Of course, we continue to monitor and adopt the latest AI-powered tools - including SEMRush, Canva, and VEO3 - to optimise our workflow, insights, and performance. But the goal isn’t to replace creativity or strategic thinking around cultural relevance; it’s to enhance them.

Budget-wise, we’re encouraging brands to invest in experiences that build real connection - meaningful messaging, storytelling, service excellence, digital ecosystems or communities, and features or activations that deliver value to people and the environment.

Every digital marketing effort, from websites and SEO to social media and advertising, should be rooted in experience-building.

For example, website strategy is becoming critical again. If a site doesn’t offer meaningful features - such as personalisation, self-service tools, loyalty programmes, educational content, community elements, or seamless customer support - people will stop visiting, because their journey will simply end on an AI generative platform. A website must feel like a destination, not just a brochure.

Ryan Kristo Muljono, CEO of ToffeeDev

Indonesia’s digital marketing landscape is entering a phase that’s faster and far more crowded. Everyone is talking about AI, but only a few truly know how to use it to deliver real impact. When content and ads can be produced in seconds, we enter an era of marketing overload - where audiences are fatigued and messages are easily lost. This is the biggest challenge businesses face today.

To move with changes happening at this pace, I choose to focus on fundamentals that never go out of date: clear data, strong messaging, and strategies that can be applied across any platform. Technology is evolving faster than ever. There’s always something new every few months - sometimes every few weeks. But the direction of the business must remain steady.

Budgeting for 2026 must also be smarter: allocating only to opportunities that are proven and measurable, not vague experiments.

My core focus is ‘copy’ - crafting messages that instantly feel relevant in the eyes of the audience. The right copy strengthens the entire digital foundation: a website that convinces, SEO that makes your business discoverable, and ads that genuinely influence decisions.

In a digital world that moves ever faster, only two things win: the right message and a strong digital foundation.

Viktor Iwan Kristanda, CEO of Doxadigital

AI visibility will become a new focus for marketing teams. As consumers adopt AI-powered search and recommendations, winning on these new “AI surfaces” - on platforms such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini - will matter just as much as visibility within search engines.

TikTok will secure its position as the mainstream commerce engine. The platform’s active user growth and time-spent metrics heading into 2025 show a stable, upward trajectory that brands don’t want to miss. We will also see a renewed adoption of owned channels, especially dot-com websites, as marketplace fees in Indonesia continue to surge. Brands will look for healthier margins and greater control over their customer data.

We believe AI-driven agents will become a new sales channel in Indonesia, and we intend to secure a head start.

With the economy moving at a slower pace, our investments will concentrate on tracking infrastructure, automation, and AI capabilities - areas that directly improve performance and efficiency.

Our key focus area is automation. Combining data-driven frameworks with agentic AI systems will give brands the marketing and operational leverage they need to scale sustainably.

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