Indonesia’s digital economy takes a hit as losses from online scams fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) mounted to around Rp9.1 trillion ($542 million) as of January 2026, prompting a social organization to call on the government to address the issue it deems puts the country in a state of emergency.
According to the Indonesia Anti-Scam Center (IASC), the country logged 432,637 public reports or complaints of digital fraud by the end of 2025, with the Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Mafindo) claiming that a significant chunk of these cases were driven by bad actors utilizing AI to create deepfakes and lure unsuspecting victims through social engineering.
Much like its Southeast Asian neighbors, Indonesia recognizes the risks of AI, but also acknowledges its benefits for growing its digital economy. Last September, the Indonesian government announced its Golden Indonesia 2045 vision, which acts as the country’s national roadmap to accelerate the use and integration of AI in critical industries.
Under this ambitious initiative, drafted by the 443-member AI Roadmap Task Force, the government targets to produce 100,000 local talents annually that could both use and create AI innovation and ensure that at least 20 million citizens are AI-literate by 2029. Indonesia is home to over 287.9 million as of 2026.
While the project is still in its early stages, it has already exposed one of the country’s biggest challenges: its struggle to adapt to rapidly evolving advanced technologies, exacerbated by low digital literacy, which becomes even more apparent with the surge in online scams.
“The attacks go beyond citizens’ basic digital literacy,” Mafindo Chair Septiaji Eko Nugroho said in a press statement as quoted by local daily Tempo.
Apart from the increasing number of digital fraud cases, Indonesia’s murky regulatory landscape is putting a dent into the country’s digital economic growth, said Nugroho, citing the result of a Sumsub report released in October 2025.
Data from the AI-powered verification platform Sumsub’s Global Fraud Index 2025 report, which surveyed 112 countries, listed Indonesia as the country with the second-highest fraud rate globally, following Pakistan.
Stepping up crackdown on digital fraud
While the latest reports look grim, Mafindo believes that the country’s “digital scam emergency” can be resolved, recommending a set of strategic policy initiatives to support the fight against online fraud.
Based on its survey in five cities at the end of 2025, where it attempted to identify the root of the problem, Mafindo recommends that the government create a unified one-stop reporting system that will allow for the early detection and prevention of fraud.
This should be accompanied by a regulatory restructuring and the development of a cross-sectoral coordination in implementing AI-based early warning systems on digital applications.
More importantly, the government should focus on strengthening citizens’ digital literacy by developing projects that would help mitigate psychological manipulation, restore public trust, and expedite response and handling in cybercrime cases.
“With this approach, the country can prevent and address the potential damage to the national economy and potential erosion to public confidence in digital transformation caused by the online scam emergency,” said Cahya Suryani, author of Mafindo’s Policy Brief for Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration to Combat Digital Fraud report.
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Source: https://coingeek.com/ai-scam-wave-exposes-gaps-in-indonesias-tech-readiness/
