How Audiences Really Think With or Through AI: Lessons for Southeast Asian Brands (Commentary by Farrell Tan)
A version of this argument was adapted for The Business Times (Singapore), published 1 July 2026 under the headline "Brand reputations are at stake as AI turns audiences into fact-checkers." We've spent years segmenting audiences by age, income, and lifestyle. AI may prove to be a more useful dividing line because it changes how decisions are made in the first place. A recent article in ET BrandEquity made a bold claim: forget neat generational buckets like Gen Alpha. The real defining force for young professionals entering the workforce today is Artificial Intelligence. They call this emerging group Generation AI. What I found most useful wasn't the headline, but the underlying idea: brands need to pay closer attention to how their audiences think. More specifically, whether they think with AI as a tool, or through AI by handing off much of the cognitive work. Malaysia and broader Southeast Asia have some of the world's highest rates of young, digitally native...
