ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) adoption in customer service is expected to raise productivity and expand the role of Filipino business process outsourcing (BPO) workers rather than replace them, according to software company Genesys.
“I feel this is a plus, not a minus,” Genesys Vice-President for Asia Mao Gen Foo told a news briefing on Wednesday. “This will level up the productivity of knowledge workers of the BPO [industry] in the Philippines.”
Genesys Country Manager for the Philippines Kulachart Ngernpermpoon said the Philippines, a major exporter of customer experience services, could combine human expertise with AI tools to deliver services more efficiently.
Six of 10 Filipino customer experience leaders plan to deploy AI-powered tools to help agents, supervisors and employees in the next two years, according to the company’s 2026 State of Customer Experience survey. The figure exceeds the Asia-Pacific average of 55% and the global average of 47%.
The survey also found that 64% of Filipino consumers have become more positive about AI-powered customer service over the past two years, compared with 56% across the Asia-Pacific region and 50% globally.
About 78% of respondents said they were indifferent to whether customer issues were resolved by a human agent or AI, provided the issue was handled quickly and completely. Meanwhile, 73% said chatbots and virtual agents made it easier to resolve concerns on their own.
Mr. Ngernpermpoon said AI deployment still requires workers with expertise to oversee systems and operations.
“The deployment of AI could be much faster and much more scalable, but you need to have the right team head or the right co-worker or the right managers,” he said.
Mr. Foo said trust would be critical as companies expand their use of AI.
“In the era of AI, I think the number one currency is trust,” he said. “Without trust, nothing works.”
The survey showed Filipino customer experience leaders expect to allocate an average of 32% of their customer service budgets to AI-powered tools in the next 12 months. About 49% expect agentic or semi-autonomous AI systems to take on a bigger role in handling customer concerns.
Genesys surveyed 5,811 consumers and 1,580 customer experience leaders in more than 20 countries, including 1,426 consumers and 508 business leaders in the region. — Juliana Chloe A. Gonzales