Bloomberg says Philippine call centers are the country’s biggest source of private sector jobs and sectoral contributor to GDP. However, it faces an uncertain future amid rapid AI advancement.

Jack Madrid, president of the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), told the news outlet it’s a “challenge and opportunity.” 

READ: OpenAI shares its plan to develop super AI

On the other hand, many call center agents see its takeover fast approaching, dreading its impact on millions of jobs. How will the country navigate this digital landscape?

This is just a preview. AI is not some disruptive force many years into the future. Everyone is at risk, companies and employees alike. Those that upskill and multiply their productivity will be massively more valuable than those that don't. Wealth disparity is going to increase… https://t.co/iX0KM4JE3X

Jack Madrid told Bloomberg he’d met around 80 companies planning to start or scale business process outsourcing in the Philippines. 

“We are at an interesting juncture. The uncertainty and paranoia over jobs have been replaced with a realization that the cost of integrating genAI (generative AI) is still steep, and we need to grasp the one- to two-year window and get our workforce skilled.” 

He mentioned that many of IBPAP’s member organizations have been testing AI use cases and have found positive results. 

READ: Apple is reportedly building mobile robots

“We have seen productivity and efficiency gains over and above 14% in the past two years, and we are hopeful that more and more of our workforce in our industry will get to view AI as augmenting the agent rather than displacing them.”

For example, AI systems may answer simple queries so agents can focus on more complicated cases. 

Avasant, a business outsourcing company, estimates that up to 300,000 business processing outsourcing (BPO) jobs could be lost to AI, in the Philippines alone, in the next five years. pic.twitter.com/3A6msYdS8Z

Industry experts sing the praises of artificial intelligence, but workers hear echoes of doom for their jobs. Take Christopher Bautista, the 47-year-old call center agent who shared his AI recent experiences with Bloomberg. 

He watched in his last tech support role as AI took on more responsibility in gatekeeping customer calls and asking questions before diverting them to humans. 

Last November, Bautista says he and 70 colleagues fell into the so-called “floating status.” It means they had no work and pay, but they were still on the books after the client pulled their contracts. 

Later, he quit for a job in sales while waiting for reassignment. “Ai will take over our jobs. It’s cheaper and more efficient,” he stated.

Bloomberg reported that [24]7.ai’s contact center in Manila’s Bonifacio Global City has been using ChatGPT to train customer agents.

It trains them to take on different customers as it adopts various personas. More importantly, they have highly convincing human-like voices thanks to GPT-4o, the latest ChatGPT large language model. 

Company co-founder and CEO PV Kannan said that agencies will still need agents to handle the often messy, unpredictable customer service space.

However, he believes future humans will serve as “middleware,” meaning redefining jobs and leaving fewer for everyone. Moreover, this possibility may arrive sooner as Philippine call centers adapt to AI faster. 

Concentrix CEO Chris Caldwell stated, “This technology isn’t waiting for anyone. And I’m not sure many countries are moving as fast as the tech companies are moving.” 

READ: AI agent that controls devices is OpenAI’s next project

Outsourcing advisory firm Avasant warned that the country may lose up to 300,000 Philippine call center jobs to AI in the next five years. 

“If you don’t upskill, obviously, AI will replace you. That’s the challenge for us,” said National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.

Philippine call centers face artificial intelligence as an opportunity or calamity. However, Avasant managing partner Akshay Khanna reminds the public, “It’s not all doom and gloom.” 

He says the technology poses a “once-in-a-lifetime risk and opportunity for this Philippine industry. For example, AI could create up to 100,000 new jobs in training algorithms or curating data.

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