Viet Nam
9.1 points below what its income predicts · expected 37.5% at its GDP per capita
Viet Nam ranks 20 of 24 countries in East Asia and Pacific: 28.5% of its task time is at least partly delegable, below the world figure of 35.2% and 20.2 points below high-income countries.
| Indicator | Viet Nam | Rank in region | Highest in region | Region | High income | World | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegability | |||||||
| ADI: task time at least partly delegable (L2–L3) | 28.5 | 20 of 24 | Singapore (64.2) | 35.3 | 48.7 | 35.2 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADI3: task time fully delegable (L3) | 1.9 | 20 of 24 | Japan (5.0) | 3.0 | 3.7 | 2.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADIs: expected share of working time delegable | 25.7 | 20 of 24 | Singapore (45.5) | 29.9 | 37.4 | 29.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| Adoption | |||||||
| AI use per working-age adult (index) | 0.48 | 7 of 10 | Singapore (6.12) | 2.14 | 2.80 | 1.53 | Anthropic Economic Index |
| Context | |||||||
| GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2021 international $) | 15,457 | 9 of 24 | Singapore (139,593) | 23,999 | 56,341 | 27,620 | World Bank WDI |
| Informal employment, % of total employment | 67.0 | 12 of 18 | Palau (7.3) | 55.3 | 12.5 | 50.2 | ILOSTAT |
Region: the 24 countries of East Asia and Pacific in the atlas (World Bank regions). Delegability rows are employment-weighted means; adoption and context rows are simple means over countries with data. For informality, rank 1 is the lowest. With equal weights inside reported groups, the preregistered sensitivity check, Viet Nam’s ADI is 27.3%.
Viet Nam against the delegation divide
Each flag is a country; the dashed line is what GDP per capita alone predicts. East Asia and Pacific keeps its colours, the rest is grey. Viet Nam is 9.1 points below what its income predicts.
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Who works in Viet Nam, and how delegable their tasks are
Service and sales workers and professionals supply 49% of Viet Nam’s delegable task time while employing 27% of its workers.
Hover a block to read one group. Shade: the group’s ADI, light 10% to dark 85%.
| Major group | Employment, Viet Nam | World | ADI of group, Viet Nam | Points of ADI, Viet Nam |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Managers | 0.9% | 3.9% | 85.5 | 0.8 |
| 4 · Clerical support workers | 2.4% | 5.0% | 72.2 | 1.8 |
| 2 · Professionals | 7.2% | 11.2% | 75.1 | 5.4 |
| 3 · Technicians and associate professionals | 3.0% | 6.7% | 68.6 | 2.0 |
| 5 · Service and sales workers | 19.3% | 17.8% | 44.9 | 8.7 |
| 8 · Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 14.3% | 7.6% | 11.9 | 1.7 |
| 6 · Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers | 15.3% | 21.9% | 16.9 | 2.6 |
| 7 · Craft and related trades workers | 13.5% | 10.8% | 16.9 | 2.3 |
| 9 · Elementary occupations | 24.2% | 15.2% | 13.6 | 3.3 |
Barriers, weighted by its jobs
The largest gap with the world is physical presence: 80% of task weight against 72% worldwide, a heavier brake on agents.
| Barrier | Share of task weight | VNM | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical presence | 80% | 72% | |
| Accountability | 21% | 26% | |
| Trust and care | 21% | 26% | |
| Access to systems | 56% | 59% |
Dashed tick: world, weighting the same tasks by world employment. A task can carry more than one barrier.
Delegable work and actual AI use
With 0.48× the world’s Claude use per working-age person, Viet Nam uses AI about as much as its delegable work would suggest (gap -0.34 standard deviations).
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Within its region
Viet Nam sits between Myanmar (28.8%) and Cambodia (26.7%); Singapore leads the region at 64.2% and Vanuatu closes it at 25.5%.
| Country | ADI | % |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | 64.2 | |
| Australia | 51.7 | |
| Tuvalu | 50.7 | |
| South Korea | 47.6 | |
| Brunei | 46.2 | |
| Nauru | 44.9 | |
| Palau | 44.3 | |
| Japan | 43.7 | |
| Marshall Islands | 40.9 | |
| Mongolia | 38.8 | |
| Fiji | 37.1 | |
| Philippines | 35.3 | |
| Samoa | 34.6 | |
| Tonga | 33.1 | |
| Thailand | 33.0 | |
| Kiribati | 32.5 | |
| Papua New Guinea | 32.2 | |
| Indonesia | 31.4 | |
| Myanmar | 28.8 | |
| Viet Nam | 28.5 | |
| Cambodia | 26.7 | |
| Timor-Leste | 26.5 | |
| Laos | 25.9 | |
| Vanuatu | 25.5 |
Dashed line: regional employment-weighted mean, 35.3%. World: 35.2%.
Espinal Maya, Cristian, and Santiago Jiménez Londoño. 2026. ADI v2026.1: Agent Delegability Index data, code and MCP server. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23552918. Record: Viet Nam (VNM), https://balamlabs.org/adi/countries/VNM
@misc{espinal2026adidata,
title = {{ADI} v2026.1: Agent Delegability Index data, code and {MCP} server},
author = {Espinal Maya, Cristian and Jim{\'e}nez Londo{\~n}o, Santiago},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
version = {v2026.1},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23552918},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23552918},
note = {Record: Viet Nam (VNM)}
}Static JSON: /adi/v2026.1/country/VNM.json