‘Not trying to solve world hunger’: GoTo takes pragmatic AI path

Hans Patuwo, president director and group CEO of GoTo / Photo credit: Tech in Asia

GoTo is narrowing its bets after two years of experimenting with AI.

The Indonesian tech group, which is the parent company of Gojek, is focusing its AI investments on applications that can improve customer conversion or lower costs ahead of a wider rollout of AI-driven products and services in 2027.

“We are not trying to solve world hunger,” said Hans Patuwo, GoTo’s president director and group CEO, as he made the case for using smaller, cheaper AI models that get the job done.

“AI should transform your business, not make you become an entirely different business,” he added.

Patuwo was speaking at a fireside chat moderated by former Tech in Asia COO Maria Li on Tuesday, the first day of Tech in Asia Conference 2026 held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

GoTo began experimenting with AI in 2024, noted Patuwo. By 2025, it had started deciding which capabilities it should build itself and where it made more sense to rely on external providers.

“There is a period of experimentation where we let 1,000 flowers bloom, but that cannot carry on forever,” he recalled.

The company eventually settled on two main measures for its AI projects: whether they improve user conversion or reduce the cost of serving customers. AI projects compete for resources like any other product it might develop.

Some are already producing results. AI now handles 35% of GoTo’s customer complaint tickets, with satisfaction scores for these interactions coming in 20% higher than the norm.

AI bots used for collections in its financial services business have also helped lift collection rates by three percentage points, while another 10 to 15 applications are in the pipeline.

The push comes as GoTo’s financial performance improves.

It posted a net profit of 252 billion rupiah (US$14.3 million) for the second quarter ended June, its second consecutive profitable quarter, against a 375 billion rupiah (US$21.1 million) loss a year earlier.

Net revenue rose 31% to 5.7 trillion rupiah (US$322 million), while adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to 1.01 trillion rupiah (US$57 million).

Keeping AI costs in check

Rethinking hiring