What we covered here
• Inaugural event: Top government and business leaders, entrepreneurs, creatives and other thought leaders gathered in Bangkok, Thailand, for the inaugural Asia edition of CNN’s Global Perspectives live event.
• Highlights: CEO Anthony Tan said Grab will work with OpenAI to boost the AI skills of its drivers. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, dismissed the question that she might run for president in France. WTO Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said “trade is facing the biggest disruptions” in the history of the World Trade Organization — but also hinted at a silver lining.
• Other guests included Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Maggie Kang, Academy Award-winning creator and co-director of “KPop Demon Hunters.”
Updates
(31)That’s a wrap!
With 18 discussions and more than 30 panelists from across the globe, CNN’s first Global Perspectives event in Asia wrapped up with “KPop Demon Hunters” creator Maggie Kang’s words on the power of representation.
From culinary heritage to renewable energy, here are some highlights you might have missed from this afternoon:
- Gaggan Anand, owner and executive chef at Gaggan, shared with CNN’s Hanako Montgomery his hatred of “food influencers” and why he felt insulted by the presence of phones in his restaurant. To him, food translates into culture and memory.
- Norway’s Minister of International Development Åsmund Aukrust, ReNew’s founder, chairman and CEO Sumant Sinha, and Rockefeller Foundation’s executive vice president of programs Elizabeth Yee, told CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout of the need for the world to diversify its renewable energy supplies.
- Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya of Thailand was in attendance, while a panel discussed a subject dear to her heart, preserving traditional attire. The panel featured Anucha Thirakanont, CEO of Sustainable Arts and Crafts Institute of Thailand, and Kullawit Laosuksri, Vogue Thailand’s editor-in-chief.
- Hong Kong businessman Bernard Chan explained that the success of a city cannot be measured only through its GDP.
- Global crises show the importance of resilient supply chains, David Bird, the CEO of Dangote Refinery said, adding that we need to better understand our dependency on single choke points.
- “We don’t look for global attention, we look for local authenticity,” Malobika Banerji, Netflix’s vice president of content for Southeast Asia, said, explaining why the entertainment industry in Asia is “exploding.”
'KPop Demon Hunters' creator on the groundwork that enabled her hit film
Maggie Kang, the Academy Award-winning creator and co-director of “KPop Demon Hunters,” told CNN’s Hanako Montgomery that she felt like an “inferior Asian” while growing up in Toronto.
Kang, who was born in South Korea, reflected on how far Korean culture has traveled since then.
By the time she created the worldwide hit “KPop Demon Hunters,” the path had already been laid for her, she said, pointing to the global popularity of K-pop music, Netflix series “Squid Game” and the award-winning film “Parasite.”
“Growing up where my culture wasn’t so cool, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re cool now,’” she said, adding, “I felt like, okay, this is the time to do it.”
“If it wasn’t for all of that groundwork laid ahead of me, I don’t think a studio as big as Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation would have done something like this,” she said. “I have to credit all those that came before me, that allowed for this to happen.”
'We obviously need to learn.' There's no room for complacency in supply chains
Global crises show the importance of resilient supply chains, the CEO of Dangote Refinery said.
“I think there was a complacency when we talk about globalization,” David Bird told CNN’s Richard Quest in a discussion on global supply chain chokepoints.
Dangote Refinery is part of the Dangote Group — a Nigerian multinational industrial conglomerate that produces cement, fertilizer and sugar, and owns Africa’s biggest oil refinery.
The issue is at the forefront for businesses. “I think a lot of consequences and considerations now have been brought into boardrooms about how we really understand our supply chains and our dependency on single choke points.”
Entertainment industry in Asia is 'exploding' — local audience is loving it
The entertainment scene in Asia is growing fast and among its rapidly expanding fan base is a proud audience at home, industry insiders told Global Perspectives.
Malobika Banerji, vice president of content for Southeast Asia at Netflix, told CNN’s Hanako Montgomery that Asian productions are now regularly topping movie and music charts around the world.
“The growth of the variety and the quality has kind of exploded in the past decade, and there is a lot of pride now in really pushing for … local artists, local creators, and really getting them to stand alongside creators from different parts of the world,” she said.
Jon Serbin, CEO of the Pacific Music Group, also noted the trend swelling from the ground up.
“A lot of people are discovering and valuing, more than before, local artists, and people getting excited about their own artists right here in Thailand, in Indonesia, in Vietnam,” he said.
Use AI fairly and give young people hope, head of DBS Group says
The adoption of AI should be fair to keep hope alive for the younger generations that have grown dissonant to the use of technology, DBS Group’s CEO Tan Su Shan told Global Perspectives.
“We need to give them hope, we need to give them purpose, and we do that by painting a more optimistic view, making sure that the use of AI is fair, and it has purpose, and it’s not dangerous,” she told CNN’s Will Ripley.
She also said young employees aren’t necessarily worse off than their more experienced counterparts in the job market, saying that her managers would rather hire a young intern with a great mindset than a middle-aged manager with a bad attitude.
“Attitude matters in this time of AI. Agility matters,” she said, adding: “It’s really a question of attitude and the ability to unlearn and relearn.”
'What about the soul?' Today, the success of a city is about more than GDP
What makes cities successful today isn’t just economic performance, Bernard Chan told Will Ripley of CNN.
“How do we measure the success of a city. I think traditionally, at least on this side of the Earth, we tend to look at GDP growth, that’s a benchmark,” said Chan, a prominent Hong Kong businessman who is a leading figure in the development of Hong Kong’s arts and culture scene — among other roles.
He added that Hong Kong’s art and culture district has so far cost $5 billion.
“Thank goodness that we have this huge investment that allows Hong Kong to be as competitive as a great city like New York, London, or even Bangkok.”
Keeping the traditional Thai outfit alive with a modern touch
Anucha Thirakanont, CEO of Sustainable Arts and Crafts Institute of Thailand, and Kullawit Laosuksri, Vogue Thailand’s editor-in-chief, sat down with CNN’s Will Ripley to talk about how their country’s traditional attire of “Chud Thai” represents their culture.
“I think this is a a tool not just to preserve the tradition, but also to keep the tradition alive,” said Anucha, with Thailand’s Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya in the audience.
Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya arrives at Global Perspectives
“Pardon me for being a little breathless, but I just had the opportunity of a lifetime to meet Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya,” CNN’s Will Ripley told the Global Perspectives audience as he made opening remarks for his next panel titled Fabric of a Nation.
Arriving directly from Paris, Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya graced CNN International’s Global Perspectives event with her presence.
Among others, she is an advocate for “Chud Thai,” the traditional Thai attire, and is spearheading a campaign for it to attain UNESCO recognition. If successful, it would join the ranks of a very short list of intangible cultural heritage wardrobes around the world.
Forget the 'elephant in the room.' What's the 'gray rhino' theory?
Why do leaders, markets and institutions repeatedly overlook the threats that matter the most?
Michele Wucker’s “gray rhino theory” is a call to decision makers to better respond to obvious, probable, impactful threats and opportunities.
“It’s not like it’s a secret. It’s not like an embarrassment, like the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is just standing there. But the rhino running down the road, is coming at you and it’s giving you a choice,” said Wucker, who is a strategic adviser and the author of “The Gray Rhino.”
“It’s to get people to look at the things that they know are happening, the obvious challenges coming right at them, that everyone’s talking about, everybody knows about them,” she told CNN’s Richard Quest, who ran around the stage like a rhino to help explain the phrase.
'Energy is the pathway out of poverty,' philanthropy executive says
For hundreds of millions of people in Southeast Asia, unreliable access to energy has left them shut out of everyday economic life, with an executive at The Rockerfeller Foundation saying energy poverty is holding back economic growth.
“We are losing valuable economic opportunity right in this room because people don’t have access to energy,” said Elizabeth Yee, executive vice president of programs at The Rockefeller Foundation.
Yee said that making energy more accessible is “the pathway out of poverty,” adding that people in energy poverty “have a 99% chance of another part of poverty,” such as food or housing insecurity.
Yee also emphasized the urgent need for clean, renewable energy.
She added that 90% of the population in the region, roughly 4 billion people, breathes air that the World Health Organization does not consider clean or good enough.
Climate crisis is 'now' and international cooperation is needed, panelists say
The impacts of the climate crisis are being acutely felt, and international cooperation is needed to drive a faster transition to renewable energy, panelists told Global Perspectives.
“Climate crisis is not a future scenario. It’s here right now,” Åsmund Aukrust, Norway’s Minister of International Development, told CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout.
Sumant Sinha, founder of ReNew, one of India’s largest clean energy companies, said renewable energy has never been so cheap but the pivot from fossil fuels is not happening fast enough.
He also urges countries, including those in Europe, to diversify the sourcing of their renewable energy infrastructure, adding that India, with its low-cost producers, could act as a “plus-one” to China, which is currently the top manufacturer.
Elizabeth Yee, executive vice president of programs at the Rockefeller Foundation, said with Asia being the most climate disaster-prone region of the world, it’s also “critical” for the region to diversify its renewable energy supplies.
'I hate them all': Celebrity chef Gaggan Anand's honest opinion on food influencers
Celebrity chef Gaggan Anand is not a fan of food influencers, he told CNN’s Hanako Montgomery.
“I hate them all,” he said. “I’m sorry, what are you influencing?”
Anand has implemented a no phones policy at his iconic restaurant.
“When I started cooking 29 years back, we had no phones, we had no technology, we were just cooking. It was us, fire, a knife, and ingredients,” he said.
Time for lunch: These are the moments you may have missed this morning
CNN’s Global Perspectives event in Bangkok has paused for lunch. Here are the morning’s highlights:
- In an exclusive announcement on stage, Grab CEO Anthony Tan said the Singapore-based superapp is deepening its partnership with OpenAI by bringing practical AI skills to Thailand through a series of workshops dubbed “GO Forward with AI.” He added that people should self-invest and embrace AI, as somebody who uses the technology is more likely to “take your job.”
- War in the Middle East is putting a “huge strain” on the supply and movement of oil and gas, while Russia’s war on Ukraine is exercising a similar pressure on refinery capacities, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told CNN’s Richard Quest. Lagarde also dismissed the question that she might run to be president of France.
- The head of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said trade disruptions have been the worst “in 80 years,” but she remains hopeful as she’s witnessing signs of resilience.
- Trip.com’s CEO, Jane Sun, told CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout how her company has invested heavily in AI as a way to understand their customers’ needs better, as well as a way to ease their engineers’ burden of the intense labor of code writing.
- In discussions about AI, OpenAI’s Asia Pacific & Japan managing director, Kiran Mani, said that despite some models in development behaving in ways they shouldn’t, AI agents developed by the company are exposing those vulnerabilities “at a scale that is unprecedented.” Gabriela Ramos, chair of the board of directors of the Center for AI and Digital Policies, added that AI oversight was urgent and couldn’t wait. And researchers told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta that protecting young people from the addictive aspects of social media may be more nuanced than an outright ban.
Does it work to ban young people from social media?
In 2025, Australia announced a ban on major social media platforms for children under the age of 16. Researchers told CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta that protecting young people from the addictive aspects of social media may be more nuanced than an outright ban.
Amanda Third, co-director of Young & Resilient Research Centre at the Western Sydney University in Australia, said while the ban on minors’ access to social media has prompted important debates, the impact is not yet conclusive.
She called for more regulation around the design features of social platforms and incentives for social media companies to improve their products and business models to better serve youngsters.
Dr. Ai Peng Tan, a pediatric neuroradiologist at the National University of Singapore, said her work has shown high-level exposure to screens for toddlers under the age of two could have lasting impacts on their brains.
But she also said technology can be positive for children who have “very good attentional and emotion regulations skills.”
'Then we're all dead': AI oversight can't wait, says expert
AI oversight is urgent, Gabriela Ramos, chair of the board of directors of the Center for AI and Digital Policies, told CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout.
“I think we should stop thinking that we need to build a huge convention and negotiate for 20 years, and then we’re all dead,” she said.
This post has been updated to reflect that Ramos was in conversation with Lu Stout.
AI agents exposing internet vulnerabilities at unprecedented scale, says OpenAI’s Kiran Mani
OpenAI’s Asia Pacific Managing Director Kiran Mani said that some models in development behaved in ways they shouldn’t, but said the company is committed to ensuring AI is used safely.
“We have publicly acknowledged that we have had models which were in development which behaved in ways that they shouldn’t. We absolutely believe that, as a company, developing frontier AI is as much about furthering the technology as it is about ensuring that it is used safely and in ways in which it is under control,” Mani said.
“What AI agents are now doing is they are exposing those vulnerabilities at a scale that is unprecedented.”
AI will help 'democratize wealth management,' business experts say
Alan Lau, executive chairman of Growhill Wealth, told CNN’s Hanako Montgomery how the adoption of AI will free financial advisers from administrative tasks and shift focus to interpersonal relations with their clients.
He said financial advisers spend more than half of their time being bogged down by mundane tasks, which can now be handled by AI, and yet that doesn’t mean they will be replaced.
“We give the time back for the adviser to actually sit down with the client,” Lau said.
“The common misconception would probably be that AI will replace people,” said Martha Sazon, the CEO of Mynt, the parent company of GCash, a finance superapp in the Philippines.
“Actually no, humans are at the center of this. We need the inputs of humans … it just upskills all of us,” she said.
Bank of America is ‘trying to get it right’ after $1.2 billion fine, says president of international
Bernard Mensah, president of international for Bank of America, says the bank is taking financial crimes compliance “very seriously,” following the US Treasury Department’s announcement that it imposed a more than $1.2 billion fine on the bank over alleged violations of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.
“Financial crimes compliance is very serious and really important. We take it very very seriously. We spent a huge amount of resources, trying to get it right, and we think we are getting it right. But these are very high standards, and so we’re working towards that,” Mensah told CNN’s Richard Quest at Global Perspectives in Bangkok.
The bank, which is the second-largest in the US, failed to mitigate and report “priority national security risks, including Chinese Money Laundering Networks and illicit finance along the southwest border,” the Treasury Department said in its announcement.
The $1.2 billion fine is the third-largest ever imposed by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Read more about what happened on CNN Business.
Grab CEO announces Thailand tie with OpenAI
The Singapore-based superapp Grab is deepening its partnership with global giant OpenAI to bring practical AI skills to Thailand.
Dubbed “GO Forward with AI,” the program plans to train 3,000 Grab drivers, delivery riders and merchants across Thailand through a series of practical AI workshops to tap into new sources of income.
In an exclusive announcement on stage at CNN’s Global Perspectives in Bangkok, Grab CEO Anthony Tan said: “We will help over 30,000 driver partners, delivery partners, merchant partners embrace AI, ChatGPT Pro for free.”
He added that he would help train drivers using AI tools and coach them how to become a content creator as a side gig to boost earnings.
Workshops will be delivered through the Grab Driver app. Featured training topics include customer engagement and retention, marketing and branding, and personal finance.
Participants will also receive three months of free ChatGPT Plus access.
The “GO Forward with AI” launch in Thailand is part of a broader partnership with OpenAI that aims to upskill over 30,000 gig workers and entrepreneurs across the region.
Grab began as a ride-hailing service and later expanded into food delivery, digital payments and business solutions for local small businesses. The regional tech giant operates in eight countries and over 900 cities across Southeast Asia.
'Somebody who knows and uses AI, they’re going to take your job'
“AI itself is not going to take your job,” Grab CEO Anthony Tan told CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout, in response to a question about what he says to employees worried about their future career prospects as technology advances.
“If you aren’t going to re-invest and self-invest and learn and embrace AI, I’m sorry, the person on your right, on your left who is embracing AI will take your job.”
