Announced on February 19, 2026, the strategic alliance between Alphabet Inc’s Google and Southeast Asian tech giant Sea Ltd marks a definitive transition from conversational AI to ‘Agentic Commerce.’
Under this new MoU, the companies are co-developing an AI-powered agentic shopping prototype for Shopee. Unlike traditional recommendation engines, these autonomous agents are engineered to execute multi-step workflows - including product research, price comparison, and transaction finalization - across integrated platforms. This move aligns with industry data from the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report, which indicates, 60 per cent of early agentic AI adopters in the region are realizing over threefold returns on investment.
Enhancing high-velocity digital ecosystems
Beyond retail, the partnership leverages Google Cloud’s advanced infrastructure to overhaul Garena’s gaming pipeline and Monee’s financial services. Garena intends to deploy these AI solutions to accelerate game development cycles and automate live operations, a critical necessity in a market where 90 per cent of consumers now utilize AI-driven interactions.
Concurrently, Monee will integrate Google’s ‘Agent Payments Protocol’ (AP2) to facilitate secure, agent-led financial transactions. This partnership will drive innovation at scale, making high-level technology accessible to the digitally underserved, states Forrest Li, Chairman and CEO, Sea, highlighting the initiative's focus on inclusive economic growth.
Navigating competitive and regulatory frontiers
This collaboration emerges as a direct response to intensifying regional competition, notably from Alibaba’s Lazada, which recently debuted its ‘Qwen 3.5’ model tailored for the agentic era.
While the opportunity is vast - with Southeast Asia’s data center capacity projected to grow by 180 per cent to support these workloads - significant hurdles remain. Fragmented regional regulations and diverse data localization laws present operational challenges for cross-border agentic functions. However, by embedding AI into core business processes rather than treating it as a peripheral tool, the Google-Sea partnership aims to set a new benchmark for the $110 billion regional digital economy.
Sea Ltd is a leading global consumer internet company headquartered in Singapore, operating three core businesses: Shopee (e-commerce), Garena (digital entertainment), and Monee (financial services). Dominating Southeast Asia with a 52 per cent e-commerce market share, Sea is currently scaling AI-driven infrastructure to sustain its robust growth and 2026 financial outlook.
