In Brief: Agoda’s 2026 developer survey found that AI agents are moving into software production across Southeast Asia and India, but organizations are still constrained by costs, codebase readiness and the need for human approval for higher-risk deployments.
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Developer Survey Finds AI Adoption Growing Faster Than Enterprise Readiness Across Southeast Asia and India – Image Credit Agoda
AI Agent Adoption Expands Across the Region
A survey commissioned by Agoda found that developers in Southeast Asia and India increasingly use artificial intelligence agents in software development, including selected production workflows. The report, conducted with Macramé Consulting, included developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and India.
According to the Agoda AI Developer Report 2026, 53% of respondents said they use AI agents in selected production workflows or broadly across their organizations. The findings reflect a shift from using AI tools for individual tasks toward using agents across development work.
Only 38% of surveyed developers said their codebase was mostly or fully ready for fully autonomous AI agents.
Productivity Gains Reported, With Review Still Common
Developers reported more frequent productivity gains from AI tools than in the previous year. Fifty-five percent said AI saves them at least seven hours each week, compared with 18% who reported that level of time savings in 2025.
The survey also found that 62% of respondents consider AI-generated code usable often or almost always without major changes. AI is being applied across activities including code review, debugging, software architecture, documentation and learning.
Eighty-six percent said they always or most of the time review or validate AI-generated output.
Cost Identified as the Main Adoption Barrier
Cost was the most frequently cited barrier to wider AI-agent adoption, identified by 28% of respondents. Integration complexity was the second-largest obstacle at 24%, followed by a lack of governance at 19%.
The report found that AI costs extend beyond model access to include designing, integrating, reviewing and validating agents.
Four in five respondents said they work under some form of AI-use restriction, including token quotas, usage caps and budget controls.
Human Approval Remains Central to Production Deployment
Developers expressed openness to allowing AI agents to take on more autonomous work, particularly for lower-risk, reversible tasks such as documentation.
Human oversight becomes more important as work approaches production deployment. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said human approval is required for production deployment.
The report also found that 70% of respondents expect AI agents to handle most development work within three years.
Skills and Career Concerns Vary by Experience Level
The growing use of AI is changing the skills developers expect to need. Respondents identified system architecture and design, AI literacy and agent orchestration as areas likely to become more important.
The transition may affect developers differently depending on seniority. Forty-nine percent of junior developers said they felt less secure about their career prospects because of AI, compared with 17% of respondents holding CTO or vice president of engineering roles.
