TLDR: A recent brief from The National Bureau of Asian Research highlights that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is making progress in AI governance, though its approach remains uneven across member states. The region employs an innovation-friendly strategy, utilizing soft law and voluntary guidelines, with Singapore emerging as a potential benchmark for more binding regulations. This flexible model aims to foster responsible AI development while accommodating the diverse political, economic, and developmental realities of its members.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is actively charting its course in artificial intelligence (AI) governance, demonstrating a pragmatic and innovation-friendly approach despite an uneven landscape across its member states. A brief by Karryl Kim Sagun Trajano, a Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, published on September 4, 2025, by The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), delves into ASEAN’s collective and individual member states’ efforts in AI regulation.
The report indicates that ASEAN’s innovation-friendly stance has been effective in advancing the region towards its goal of becoming a fully digital economy, with a current framework designed to ensure inclusive growth. However, the escalating risks associated with AI necessitate a move towards more binding regulations. The study suggests that it is timely to review existing guidelines and assess which countries are technologically prepared to implement enforceable regulations.
Singapore is identified as a potential governance benchmark, capable of guiding a region-wide approach through the alignment of regulations across ASEAN. Such harmonization could bolster the region’s credibility as a technological hub, safeguard individuals from malicious actors exploiting legal loopholes, and attract global investment by solidifying ASEAN’s reputation as a trustworthy destination for AI development.
In February 2024, ASEAN introduced the nonbinding Guide on AI Governance and Ethics for the entire region. This guide articulates core principles including transparency, fairness, security, reliability, privacy, accountability, and human centricity, all aimed at ensuring that countries maintain agency over AI-driven outcomes. The report emphasizes that while sweeping laws may not be required at the outset, regulation can be built on a foundation of trust, ethics, and flexibility that adapts to technological progress.
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The conclusion drawn is that Southeast Asia’s seemingly uneven AI governance reflects a region striving to tailor regulation to its varied political, economic, and developmental contexts. ASEAN’s reliance on soft law—voluntary guidelines, strategic frameworks, and ethics-based principles—underscores a flexible, inclusive model. This approach allows countries at different stages of development to actively participate in AI development, promoting a synergy between innovation and regulation rather than treating them as conflicting forces.
