By Kimberley Kao

Alphabet's Google and Southeast Asian consumer internet giant Sea are deepening ties to advance artificial-intelligence tools across the Singapore-based company's digital entertainment, e-commerce and financial services businesses.

Part of the agreement will include jointly building "an AI agentic shopping prototype" to integrate across Google and Sea's e-commerce platform, Shopee, the companies said Thursday. Both tech companies, which also offer digital payment services, plan to later trial an agentic payment experience across their platforms.

Sea's gaming unit, Garena, will use Google's AI solutions to improve gamer experiences and the productivity of game development and operations.

"AI is the next big technology revolution, and we believe that it has huge potential to positively transform our business and create value in our markets," Sea Chairman and Chief Executive Forrest Li said. "This partnership with Google on AI will drive innovation in the business application of the technology at scale."

The move builds on an existing partnership between New York-listed Sea and Google, which includes a recent collaboration between the YouTube Shopping affiliate program and Shopee.

According to a report by consultancy firm Momentum Works, Shopee was the dominant e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, holding a 52% regional market share in 2024.

Part of Sea's strategy has included using AI and social commerce to enhance sellers' marketing strategies and provide tools that improve product recommendations for customers.

Write to Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 19, 2026 04:25 ET (09:25 GMT)

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