AI Readiness, Digital Literacy and Digital Capability
Rethinking Educational Equity in Southeast Asia
Abstract
The rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming digital environments and educational systems across Southeast Asia, while creating challenges for information credibility and digital inequality. This study examines the relationship between government AI readiness and population-level digital literacy across six Southeast Asian countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—and discusses its implications for digital capability and educational equity. Using a comparative secondary-data approach, the study draws primarily on the 2025 Government AI Readiness Index developed by Oxford Insights and the digital literacy sub-pillar of the Tech for Good Institute’s 2025 Confident Digital Society Index. National AI strategies and policy documents are used to interpret the numerical patterns. The comparison reveals substantial differences between government AI readiness and digital literacy. Singapore demonstrates the highest government AI readiness, while Malaysia and the Philippines show comparatively higher digital literacy than government AI readiness. Indonesia exhibits near alignment between the two dimensions, whereas Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam show higher government AI readiness than digital literacy. Policy documents and prior studies suggest that strategies centre on institutions and talent pipelines, while public literacy receives limited attention and national averages conceal unequal capability. Educational equity in the AI era should therefore be understood beyond equal access to digital technologies: it increasingly depends on whether people can develop the critical, evaluative, and adaptive capabilities needed to navigate AI-mediated information environments.
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