This reflection extends Thailand's Human Future — how national competitiveness itself must evolve as AI reshapes what "productivity" means.
For many years, Thailand's competitiveness has relied partly on location, infrastructure, labour, manufacturing capability and service culture. These strengths remain valuable.
But artificial intelligence is reducing the long-term advantage of competing primarily through lower cost or routine efficiency. Activities that follow predictable rules are increasingly easier to automate. Countries and companies that compete only by performing the same task more cheaply may face growing pressure.
Thailand therefore needs to move from a low-cost economy toward a learning economy. A learning economy does not merely adopt new tools — it continuously improves how people, organisations and institutions solve problems.
This requires a different understanding of productivity. AI should not be used only to reduce headcount, shorten service time or produce more output. It should help Thai organisations discover new products, improve quality, respond to changing customers and enter higher-value activities.
My research showed that people's cultural behaviour was not identical across Thai society and virtual communities. The environment influenced which characteristics became stronger or weaker. This suggests an important national lesson: behaviour is not fixed. Institutions and technological environments can encourage different capabilities.
Thai workplaces can be designed to reward curiosity rather than compliance alone. Employees can be encouraged to question established processes, experiment with AI and contribute ideas regardless of position.
But experimentation must be connected to real knowledge. Thailand does not need every citizen to become a programmer. It needs people in every profession who can combine domain experience with intelligent tools — a nurse who redesigns a patient process, a factory supervisor who identifies patterns in quality problems, a hotel employee who uses customer insight to create a better service, a small business owner who discovers a new market through data.
The economic value comes not from AI alone, but from people who understand a problem deeply enough to direct AI toward it.
Thailand will not move forward by helping people perform yesterday's work faster, but by helping them solve tomorrow's problems better.