Designing AI for the informal economy
Source: Bangkok Post
Published on: 2026-10-15 06:14
How can artificial intelligence benefit more people in developing economies? Any serious answer must start with the economic lives that people actually lead. Most of today's global AI conversation is framed around advanced economies and formal labor markets: salaried jobs, banked populations, institutions that can measure what people earn. Southeast Asia requires a different starting point. Here, 78 percent of the workforce, numbering hundreds of millions, operates in the informal economy. These are the street hawkers, stall owners, construction workers, and ride-hailing drivers on whom so much of everyday economic life depends. It's a mistake to treat the informality of their work as a passing phase or a development problem to be solved. It's true that many people do move from informal to formal work, and AI-enabled platforms can provide a pathway for those who want to do so. But the...
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