‘I’m terrified’: AI comes for Southeast Asia’s graduate jobs

Nafeesa Azman has applied for hundreds of jobs over the past two months, yet the 24-year-old Malaysian marketing graduate is yet to find a permanent role that pays what she needs or uses the skills she spent years, and a good deal of money, developing.

Natthanicha Intawong, a final-year media arts student in Bangkok, describes the terror many of her peers feel as they prepare to enter a jobs market that artificial intelligence is already beginning to scythe through.

For Joshua Nai, a Singaporean graduate, the writing was quite literally on the wall. He completed a three-year diploma in animation and game art at Singapore Polytechnic in 2024, but abandoned his dream of a career in gaming after seeing the increasing amounts of AI-generated artwork being used in the industry and elsewhere.