Creator content, affiliate incentives, platform commerce and AI-enabled discovery are converging.

Signal: According to Cube Asia x impact.com (2026), influencer and affiliate marketing together are linked to approximately 32% of Southeast Asian ecommerce sales — equivalent to around US$70 billion.

What's Changing: Discovery, engagement and conversion are moving closer together within the e-commerce journey. Creator content drives awareness, affiliate links enable attribution, platform commerce handles the transaction, and AI-enabled recommendations increasingly influence which products surface.

AIHubSEA Operator Lens: Operator selection is becoming an ecosystem decision, not a channel decision. A creator agency that also manages affiliate commerce, understands marketplace dynamics and is aware of AI discoverability implications is a fundamentally different capability from a traditional influencer agency.

Source: Cube Asia x impact.com, 2026