Perpres AI 2026: What Indonesia's New AI Regulation Means for Your Enterprise

Indonesia is about to give artificial intelligence its first national legal framework. Two draft Presidential Regulations (Peraturan Presiden, or Perpres) have been finalized by the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) and submitted to the President: one establishing a National AI Roadmap and another codifying AI Ethics. The government is targeting issuance within 2026.

For Indonesian enterprises, this is not a distant policy discussion. The Perpres will become the national reference for how AI is developed, deployed, and governed across the private sector, government, and research institutions. If your organization is adopting AI, or planning to, 2026 is the year to align your AI governance with where national policy is heading.

Why Is Perpres AI Happening Now?

Three forces converged to make 2026 the year of AI regulation in Indonesia.

First, formal government commitment. Through Presidential Decree (Keppres) No. 38 of 2025, President Prabowo Subianto listed 46 draft Presidential Regulations to be enacted, and two of them concern AI: the Ethics of AI Implementation and the National AI Roadmap. Komdigi has since completed both drafts and submitted them to the State Secretariat.

Second, regional regulatory momentum. South Korea's AI Basic Law took effect in January 2026 and the EU AI Act entered a new enforcement phase in February 2026, while Vietnam and Malaysia have embedded AI into their national regulatory agendas. Indonesia, which completed an AI Readiness Assessment with UNESCO, cannot afford to be the region's regulatory blank spot.

Third, economic ambition. According to a Reuters report on the draft regulation, the government estimates AI adoption could lift Indonesia's GDP by up to 12%, or approximately US$366 billion, by 2030. The report also cites an AI program valued at around US$15 billion tied to national priority initiatives. AI is positioned as a core accelerant of the Indonesia Emas 2045 vision.

What the Two Perpres Actually Cover

1. The National AI Roadmap (Peta Jalan Kecerdasan Artifisial Nasional)

The Roadmap Perpres provides strategic direction for building Indonesia's AI ecosystem through 2029. It goes beyond ethics and regulation to address four pillars: infrastructure, talent, research, and financing.

Key elements reported from the draft and official briefings include:

• Priority sectors for AI development and utilization: economy and finance; energy, resources and environment; health; food security; education; defense; housing; politics, law and security; and bureaucratic reform.

• Integration of AI into national priority programs, including the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) program, where AI would support region-specific menu design, demand forecasting, and anomaly detection.

What Is the Sovereign AI Fund?

The draft Roadmap also proposes a Sovereign AI Fund: a financing vehicle planned to be managed by Danantara Indonesia with blended government and private capital, targeted to begin in the 2027 to 2029 period. The fund is designed to support AI infrastructure such as data centers and compute services, along with digital talent development.

2. The AI Ethics Perpres (Etika Kecerdasan Artifisial)

The Ethics Perpres institutionalizes principles that were previously voluntary guidance, such as Komdigi's 2023 circular on AI ethics, into a binding presidential-level framework. It sets guardrails across the entire AI lifecycle of development, deployment, and utilization, and applies to a broad set of actors: users, data providers, developers, AI operators, system providers, and government ministries and agencies.

Does the Perpres Include Sanctions or Penalties?

No. Government officials have confirmed the Perpres will not contain new sanctions. Enforcement continues to rest on existing laws, most relevantly the Personal Data Protection Law (UU PDP No. 27/2022) and the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (UU ITE). The Perpres is a governance and trust framework, not a penal instrument. That design choice reflects the government's stated intent: encourage innovation while keeping it ethical, transparent, and accountable.

The Four Foundations of Indonesia's AI Governance

In public briefings, the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs outlined four foundations underpinning the regulation:

1. Transparent digital governance. Clear accountability for how AI systems make decisions.

2. Reliable digital infrastructure. The connectivity, data centers, and compute capacity that AI workloads demand.

3. Secure and integrated data management. Aligned with UU PDP obligations.

4. Competitive digital talent. Closing the AI skills gap across the workforce.

For enterprises, these four foundations are effectively a preview of what "AI-ready" will mean in the Indonesian regulatory context.

What This Means for Your Enterprise: 5 Practical Implications

1. AI governance moves from optional to expected. Once the Perpres is issued, ministries are expected to derive sectoral rules (Peraturan Menteri) from it. Enterprises in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, and energy should expect sector-specific AI guidance to follow. Building an internal AI governance framework now is significantly cheaper than retrofitting one later.

2. Explainability and transparency become baseline requirements. The ethics framework emphasizes accountable AI rather than "black box" systems. If your organization deploys AI in customer-facing decisions like credit scoring, claims processing, or hiring, start documenting how those models work and who is accountable for their outputs.

3. Data governance is the foundation, not an afterthought. The Perpres is built on top of UU PDP. Enterprises whose data architecture already complies with PDP requirements (lawful basis, data minimization, security controls) will find AI compliance far easier. Those that don't will be solving two problems at once.

4. Infrastructure readiness becomes a competitive differentiator. The Roadmap's emphasis on sovereign AI infrastructure, including GPU-based compute, national data centers, and reliable connectivity, signals where public and private investment is flowing. Enterprises should evaluate whether their network and data infrastructure can support AI workloads at production scale, not just pilot scale.

5. Talent and change management are in scope. The regulation treats talent development as a pillar of the AI ecosystem. Microsoft's Work Trend Index 2026 found 33% of Indonesian workers are already at the frontier of AI adoption. But enterprise value depends on structured upskilling, usage standards, and human oversight, not ad-hoc experimentation.

How Should Your Enterprise Prepare? A 90-Day Readiness Checklist

1. Days 1 to 30: Inventory all AI use cases currently deployed or piloted across the organization. Map each to a risk level and a business owner.

2. Days 31 to 60: Gap-assess against the four foundations (governance, infrastructure, data, talent). Prioritize PDP compliance gaps first.

3. Days 61 to 90: Establish an AI governance committee, publish internal AI usage standards, and align your infrastructure roadmap with projected AI workload growth.

Enterprises that treat Perpres AI as a strategic planning input rather than a compliance chore will be positioned to move faster once sectoral regulations arrive.

The Bottom Line

Perpres AI 2026 marks Indonesia's transition from voluntary AI ethics to a national governance framework. It won't punish, but it will define what responsible AI adoption looks like in Indonesia, and it will shape where infrastructure investment, talent programs, and sectoral rules go next.

The enterprises that win in this environment will be those whose governance, data, and infrastructure foundations are ready before the ink dries.

Written by
Alita Editorial

About Alita
PT Alita Praya Mitra is an Indonesian digital business solution enabler helping organizations accelerate digital transformation through integrated technology solutions and managed services. With more than three decades of experience, Alita delivers end-to-end capabilities across Business Productivity, Cyber Security, Asset Management, and Mobility Solutions, enabling enterprises to operate more securely, efficiently, and intelligently.