The Philippines at the AI crossroads: What the country and its industry leaders must do now - BusinessWorld Online
STOCK PHOTO | Image by Upklyak from Magnific By Yu Ming Chin OUR COUNTRY’s outsourcing empire is now facing a reckoning.Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already encroaching on the Philippine economy: inside the contact centers, back-office operations, financial services firms, and the shared service centers that employ nearly two million Filipinos and anchor more than 8% of the country’s GDP.
The rules of competition are changing faster than most organizations have prepared for.London-based Capital Economics’ February 2026 report placed the Philippines at 43rd out of 47 countries in its AI Economic Impact Index, with a score of 21 out of 100.
Among our ASEAN peers, the Philippines ranked last.The good news is that this gap serves as a decision point.
I am proud to share that The National AI & Skills Summit — hosted by Viventis in partnership with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) — will bring together the leaders who can make those decisions: CEOs, policymakers, technology innovators, and educators charged with building an AI-ready Philippines.THE BPO PARADOX: GREATEST ASSET, GREATEST RISKThe BPO and IT-BPM (business process outsourcing and information technology and business process management) industry is a national success story and is also at risk of being superseded by AI.
The IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) projects $42 billion in revenues and nearly 1.97 million employees by the end of 2026.The Philippines accounts for close to one-fifth of the global outsourcing market, with a formidable reputation in English proficiency, cultural affinity with Western clients, high emotional intelligence, and an innate capacity for customer empathy — qualities that multinational companies have valued and paid for over two decades.
But the same characteristics that built that industry are now being studied and replicated by AI.Repetitive, predictable, hig...