AI and Bots – A Threat to Filipinos and Philippine Economy

In the last few years the Philippines have experienced a steady growth in its economy, this coincided with the boom of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) demands from US and Europe. These growths are at risk of being disrupted by developments in AI and Bots technology.

What is AI?

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, the simple definition in Wikipedia is AI is the intelligence exhibited by machines and software. Latest developments in computing made processing huge volume of data faster than it ever was. Making it possible for machines and software to make computations in speeds sometimes even faster than humans.

What are Bots?

The word bot is derived from the word robot which is defined as a machine capable of performing complex tasks, automatically. Similarly, a bot can perform complex tasks automatically, however, it doesn’t have to be a big mechanical object. This is also made possible by developments in computing.

Why are AI and Bots a Threat

Before the bank ATM was invented, how many bank tellers do you know? Like what I said in the first paragraph, BPO business have been a major contributor in the Philippine economy. Many are employed by BPOs specifically call centers. AIs and Bots can respond to questions in the same speed if not faster than humans do. AI can easily piece together information from data lakes from different geographic locations and make sense out of it. Bots can be programmed to send or respond to user queries using information derived from AI. There are several companies that already use Bots to respond to user queries such as banks, tech companies, even Facebook already uses a bot.

The inevitable

Change is happening, no doubt about it. AI and Bots will take over call centers and support centers of the future. Those who are in the BPO business should keep this in mind and start preparing themselves for the inevitable.

My advise to those who are in the BPO business is to start planning for a new career. Start developing yourselves to make you marketable or deployable.