Why Asia Is More Enthusiastic About AI Than the West

In China, India, much of Southeast Asia, and elsewhere in Asia, the net benefits of AI are perceived by populations to be greater than their drawbacks.

We are living in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). AI dominates the headlines, spreads its influence into all spheres of life, and is increasingly seen as vital to the economic growth and national security of nations. The use of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude have become ubiquitous in daily life. Needless to say, the increased spread of AI — and its impact on relationships, employment, and other facets of society — has provoked trepidation among many.

However, surveys consistently show that Asians — and in fact, most non-Western populations — are much more enthusiastic and excited about AI than people from the West. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos in 2025, over 80 percent of respondents from the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore said that AI will profoundly change their lives in the next few years. Eighty-four percent of Chinese respondents said that products and services using AI excited them. Likewise, 65 percent of Indians, 67 percent of Turks, and 69 percent of South Koreans felt the same way, compared to 38 percent of Americans, 31 percent of Canadians, 37 percent of the British, and 40 percent of the French.

Whilst Japan was an outlier in the Ipsos survey, with 46 percent of Japanese respondents indicating that they were excited about AI, in a separate survey by Pew, only 28 percent of Japanese respondents said that they were more concerned than excited about AI. Similarly, only 26 percent of people from Turkiye, 21 percent from Israel, 19 percent from India, and 16 percent from South Korea felt more concerned than excited about AI. Contrast this with half of Americans responding that they were more concerned than excited about AI.

There is therefore a clear and noticeable difference between Asian — and other non-Western populations — and Western attitudes toward AI that invites an explanation. There are several reasons why Asians are more enthusiastic about AI than Westerners.

First, AI improves the life of an average citizen of an Asian country relative to any downsides that it may have. AI is seamlessly integrated into a wide number of day-to-day activities such that it feels like an ordinary part of life, or a tool to improve life, rather than as a threat. In China, for example, where trust in AI is among the highest in the world, AI is embedded in many government services and private payment tools, so using it is unavoidable. According to Chinese journalist Nina Xiang, Chinese users tend to be pragmatic in favoring convenience over privacy when it comes to AI use.

In more advanced societies, such as Japan and South Korea, AI is useful for increasing productivity and performing tasks in economies with aging populations and falling birth rates.

Even more importantly, AI is extremely useful in places where educational, bureaucratic, and professional services are scarce or substandard, as is the case in many parts of India. In many villages, schools are often understaffed, with a single teacher teaching dozens of children whose learning styles may wildly differ. AI is useful in this scenario and preferable to the alternative of not learning, because it can tailor explanations and exercises to each individual’s abilities. AI also compensates for weak institutions or helps individuals manage difficult tasks in a multilingual country with a difficult bureaucracy. Contrast this with Western countries, most of which have relatively efficient and functional governments that may not immediately require streamlining by AI, or the internet more generally. For example, India developed the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system to deliver welfare directly to Indians rather than routing benefits through corrupt middlemen. AI has helped streamline this process.

Furthermore, AI is significantly less disruptive to societies in which white-collar workers form a smaller percentage of the population. Most Western states have a higher proportion of white-collar workers than the rest of the world. The long development, over time, of the liberal arts and sciences in a collegiate or post-graduate environment ensured a large supply of quality teachers, researchers, lawyers, writers, and scientists who rely on working with texts and information. In short, the West gains from AI less, at least in the short term, given the structure of its economy and education system, along with its level of development. Correspondingly, Western societies also have more to lose from the disruption caused by........

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