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IN FOCUS
- What makes Pokee AI different from Manus and other players
- Which SEA companies make the most revenue with the fewest employees?
- Why Indonesia’s goal of 12 million AI specialists by 2030 isn’t enough
Hi there,
In recent months, an AI-generated character called Tung Tung Tung Sahur went viral. It has been used in social media posts, YouTube videos, memes, and meme coins – there’s even talk of a movie.
The character even became a skin in Free Fire, a game owned by Sea Group’s Garena. However, the creator of Tung Tung Tung Sahur – Noxa – protested against Garena, saying that the company had used the character without seeking permission.
This raised an important question: Does someone have rights over an AI-generated character just because they wrote the prompt?
Turns out, they just might. Garena reached out to Noxa and asked for permission to use Tung Tung Tung Sahur in its game.
While AI in creative work still sparks legal and ethical questions, its adoption in more functional areas like productivity and workflow automation is gaining traction. That shift is where a new wave of AI agent startups comes in, including one rising name: Pokee AI.
Led by a former Meta manager and fresh off a US$12 million funding round, Pokee is taking a different approach from most of its competitors.
In our first Big Story, my colleague Glenn spoke with Pokee founder Zheqing (Bill) Zhu. His company believes in using reinforcement learning rather than building ever-larger language models to power its AI agent.
Pokee helps users automate workflows and carry out tasks such as scheduling meetings or posting content on social media. What sets it apart is its ability to connect multiple tools at the same time – a tough ask for many of its competitors.
In our second Big Story, my colleague Miguel charts the Southeast Asian companies that generate the most revenue with the fewest employees. The region is seeing a new wave of AI startups that want to create a “three-person unicorn.”
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the government says the country will need around 12 million AI specialists by 2030. In this week’s Hot Take, I examine concerns about the lack of local AI companies to provide job opportunities for that talent.
THE BIG STORIES
1️⃣ LLMs are central to Manus. Not so for this new AI agent
THE HOT TAKE
DEEP READS
As the world rushed into the future, they kept it grounded.
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