Jakarta conference explores future with AI technologies in Indonesia

With a population of 280 million people, Indonesia has very big potential of becoming a big market for artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, a forum heard on May 15.

Widespread adoption of AI in the country will not cause unemployment, but will instead lead to the creation of more job opportunities if all parties join hands in overcoming barriers to that technology, according to speakers at the AI Innovation Conference 2025 in Jakarta.

"AI does not replace man. It is we who must learn to become productive in various fields of work," by adopting AI, Irvan Bastian Arief, vice-president of Data Science and Machine Learning at tiket.com, told the gathering of about 800 people. They included representatives of state-owned companies, private banks and other financial institutions, technology consulting firms and university students. The conference was jointly organized by ALGORITMA Data Science School, upertype, and Tempo Magazine.

The majority of the participants were not familiar with AI, according to the observation made by a bank executive when he was speaking in the forum.

Arief and other speakers said there were still widespread worries among people in Indonesia about AI adoption kicking people out of their workplace. The speakers said AI exactly makes people and organizations more creative in opening new business opportunities and making their ventures more profitable.

Dito Eka Cahya, head of the intelligent electronics system at the National Research and Innovation Agency, said many organizations and communities in Indonesia still lack digital literacy.

Organizational leaders, down to their workers, remain resistant to the introduction of new technologies, let alone AI-powered technology, Cahya said.

Arief said, however, it is not at all a discouraging situation. He recalled how many Indonesians, including himself, were anxious about the emergence of laptop use in Indonesia in the early 1990s, and now the equipment has been widely used by so many individuals and organizations across the vast archipelago.

The technical aspects related to AI applications for specific tasks are also highlighted at the event.

Indonesia and China have collaborated to accelerate the development of digital infrastructure by expanding 4G and 5G connectivity in the archipelago's remote areas. The Indonesian government launched in 2023 the National Strategy for Digital Economy.

The Indonesia-China collaboration, among the largest of its kind in Asia, is aiming to boost Indonesia's digital economy and turn the developing country into a developed nation.

Jesicca Omar, a senior executive at Jakarta-based technology consulting firm PT Aneka Research Indonesia, said they are optimistic AI-powered technologies will be widely used in Indonesia.

Omar said her AI-powered company was increasingly busy and recruiting more and more staff due to rising requests from their clients for designing and conducting entry tests for new workers.

Her company needs quality staff for making test designs that fit the qualifications of new workers needed by their clients.

"In designing and conducting tests, my colleagues and I do not have to go to Papua to meet in person with those tested and the organizations that ask us to conduct the test," Omar said on the sidelines of the forum, providing a concrete example of what they had been doing. Papua is Indonesia's most eastern province. She hopes China will continue to support Indonesia in AI.

M. Fiki Rifkiana, a consultant at a cutting-edge IT solutions firm in Jakarta, said a number of the Jakarta city government offices had asked them to improve their operation with AI-powered solutions.

The information system graduate said technology companies like theirs will likely get more orders from more and more government offices because they need automation for their work.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.