AI reshaping social commerce in Vietnam

In a recent interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) online newspaper, Khoi Le, Vietnam country director of Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, said Vietnam has strong potential to further develop agentic social commerce, a model in which AI supports commerce through social media.

A key foundation is consumers' habit of messaging businesses. Some 82.8 percent of Vietnamese adult Internet users said messaging is their preferred way to communicate with businesses.

Meanwhile, 85.6 percent want relevant information about products, services and promotions, while 70.2 percent said they receive too many messages from businesses.

This shows that the challenge is no longer simply sending more information, but delivering the right information to the right person at the right time, Khoi said.

AI can help businesses personalize customer experiences at scale while enabling small- and medium-sized enterprises to handle tasks that previously required more resources, he added.

Unlike traditional chatbots, AI assistants can participate more deeply in conversations instead of responding only to fixed scripts.

Meta Business Agent, a Meta AI tool, for example, can answer customer questions, recommend products based on information provided by a business and support customers around the clock, Khoi said.

Businesses can provide the AI assistant with information from their websites, Facebook pages, product catalogs and customer-service procedures, allowing it to learn their knowledge base and communication style.

Companies also retain control over the assistant and can adjust its responses or set situations in which human employees should take over the conversation, Khoi said.

In addition to changing customer interactions, AI is changing how businesses organize their workforce.

Vietnamese consumers are accustomed to enthusiastic and personalized advice, so AI should handle repetitive tasks while employees focus on situations requiring expertise and human sensitivity, Khoi said.

Meta also makes it clear to users when they are interacting with an AI assistant, he added.

Businesses should train AI using their existing information and procedures so that its responses match their communication style, while keeping human employees ready to intervene when necessary.

From the perspective of AI implementation, Nguyen Viet Anh, chief transformation officer at PMAX, a total performance marketing agency based in Ho Chi Minh City, said the challenge is no longer simply accessing AI but deploying it effectively.

Businesses need to standardize their operational, sales and customer-service processes so they can both train AI and evaluate its performance, he said.

At PMAX, Anh noted, the role of employees is shifting from operators who mainly run existing processes to builders who create and improve systems.

As AI supports reporting, data analysis and repetitive tasks, employees can spend more time identifying problems, designing solutions and addressing strategic issues, allowing businesses to expand their capacity to serve customers.

Live-stream shopping is another area where AI can support businesses, particularly during peak shopping periods such as Tet (Lunar New Year).

Khoi said live-stream hosts should focus on tasks they do best, such as creating content and attracting viewers, while AI can help handle messages, provide advice and support the next steps in the purchasing process when customer interest surges.

The key is not only how many people watch a live stream but also whether businesses can respond promptly and avoid losing potential customers, he said.

Meanwhile, Anh noted that AI can expand a business's capacity to serve customers without requiring a corresponding increase in its workforce.

However, businesses first need to clearly define their sales and customer-service processes and identify which tasks AI can perform effectively, allowing employees to concentrate on work that requires expertise and direct interaction.