BUSINESS TECH | Philippine AI adoption rises , AWS report finds
Despite this progress, 57% of AI adopters were still exploring or experimenting with the technology, and only 17% of businesses had a formal roadmap for scaling AI across their operations.
The Philippines’ adoption of artificial intelligence rose to 32% from 21% a year earlier, but businesses continue to face skills shortages, technical constraints and governance gaps that could slow wider deployment, according to a report presented by Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Oct. 14, 2026, at the company’s office in Bonifacio Global City.
The Unlocking the Philippines’ AI Potential: 2026 Report was commissioned by AWS and conducted by Strand Partners through interviews with 1,000 business leaders and 1,000 members of the public. It examines AI adoption, business outcomes, workforce readiness, governance and infrastructure.
Precious Lim, AWS Philippines country manager, said the challenge is to turn growing adoption into broader business transformation rather than leave AI initiatives at the experimentation stage.
The study recorded 52% year-on-year growth in AI adoption. Among businesses already using AI, 74% reported productivity gains, while 68% said the technology had increased revenue, with average revenue growth of 20%. Another 83% expected AI to drive business growth over the following year.
However, the findings suggest that adoption has not yet translated into organization-wide implementation. The proportion of AI adopters focused on basic use cases declined from 78% to 70%, while the share classified as being at the most advanced stage increased from 8% to 12%.
Despite this progress, 57% of AI adopters were still exploring or experimenting with the technology, and only 17% of businesses had a formal roadmap for scaling AI across their operations.
Agentic AI adoption remains limited
Awareness of agentic AI, which uses AI systems to carry out tasks through coordinated actions, also remains limited. Only 39% of businesses surveyed said they had heard of the technology.
Among those familiar with it, 6% had fully deployed agentic AI, 20% were experimenting with or piloting it, and 50% planned to use it or were considering adoption.
Businesses already using agentic AI reported operational benefits. Some 57% cited improved efficiency or productivity, 46% reported faster decision-making and execution, and 38% said the technology had improved operational scalability.
Readiness remains a concern. Only 19% of businesses described themselves as fully or very ready to adopt the next generation of AI. Startups were more optimistic, with 42% saying they were ready, compared with 34% of large enterprises and 18% of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The biggest reported obstacle was a shortage of digital skills, cited by 47% of respondents. Technical or data-related barriers followed at 39%, while 36% pointed to insufficient internal financial resources and 33% cited limited workforce capacity.
PH companies report operational gains
The briefing highlighted local companies using AWS services to automate business processes.
PLDT Home and Smart Communications have expanded Store Genie, an AI-powered customer service solution developed with Amdocs and built using Amazon Bedrock AgentCore. The system supports more than 750 frontline agents across the two businesses at 149 locations, according to the presentation.
Store Genie automates workflows involving customer inquiries, billing, service provisioning and payments. AWS said the system reduced order inquiry processing from 10 hours to two minutes, over-the-top subscription activation from 12 hours to two minutes, and service request cancellations from five hours to two minutes.
Since its deployment at Smart in March 2026, Store Genie has helped avoid more than 61,000 hours of customer waiting time and resolved more than 44,000 inquiries through AI agents. The presentation also reported a 25% increase in frontline productivity and a 50% reduction in escalation tickets across Smart and PLDT Home operations.
Meanwhile, ePLDT is expanding its cloud and next-generation contact center-as-a-service offerings through Amazon Connect. The service supports intelligent self-service, omnichannel engagement, automated call routing, real-time agent assistance and predictive insights, allowing businesses to move beyond legacy contact center systems.
In recruitment, offshore staffing and outsourcing provider Emapta is developing AVAR, or AI-Powered Virtual Automated Recruitment, with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center. The system uses Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Transcribe and Amazon Nova to automate video interviews, analyze candidate responses and generate job compatibility scores.
AVAR is intended to reduce recruiters’ time spent evaluating interviews by 30%. The presentation scheduled its launch for the fourth quarter of 2026, with plans to expand the system across Emapta’s global recruitment operations.
Strato HCM, an HR technology provider, is also using AI to streamline software development. Its adoption of Kiro and an AI-powered software development life cycle approach reportedly accelerated major platform overhauls by 400%, reducing development timelines from more than 17 sprints to five or six.
Skills, governance need attention
Beyond technical deployment, the report identified workforce capability, governance and the measurement of business value as priorities.
While 88% of businesses expected AI skills to become more important in their industries over the next five years, companies estimated that only 31% of their workforces felt confident using more advanced AI tools. The study also found that 85% of the public was familiar with AI tools, with 26% using them at least weekly.
Formal governance remains uncommon. Only 12% of businesses reported having a comprehensive AI framework, while 18% had a formal data governance framework. Although 46% said they were confident in measuring returns on investment from AI initiatives, the study found that performance metrics were not consistently used to determine whether projects should continue or be discontinued.
Lim said companies should start with business needs rather than deploy AI simply to adopt the technology.
“So, it is very important that you work backwards from what problem or challenge you are solving,” Lim said.
The report also found that 71% of businesses considered government leadership crucial to accelerating AI adoption, while 74% said stronger collaboration between government and technology providers could speed implementation. Another 45% agreed government use of AI would encourage businesses to adopt and trust the technology, and 56% identified grants and incentives as important factors in adoption decisions.
Lim also stressed the importance of reliable data as companies move toward more sophisticated AI applications. In outlining the report’s priorities, she said: “So, the five priority areas is number one is that we need to treat data and infra as prerequisites for the next wave of AI.”
Infrastructure, training remain priorities
Despite the challenges, 79% of respondents believed the Philippines had the potential to become one of Southeast Asia’s leading AI economies over the next decade. A skilled and educated workforce, a large consumer market and a stable business environment were cited as potential advantages.
The report also identified shortages of digital and technology talent, inadequate digital infrastructure and limited access to growth funding as constraints.
Lim said AWS had trained and certified 280,000 Filipinos in cloud and AI since 2017. The company also cited a strategic training agreement with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to make cloud and AI learning programs available to registered learners through its online learning channel.
AWS also pointed to its Manila Local Zone, which allows customers to run latency-sensitive workloads in-country, including workloads subject to data-location requirements. The company said it provides security controls, Amazon Bedrock Guardrails and human oversight to help organizations manage risks associated with AI deployment.
The report outlined five priorities for scaling AI: establishing sound data and infrastructure foundations, measuring business value, developing employees’ ability to work alongside AI, encouraging government adoption, and defining which tasks should be handled by AI agents and which require human judgment.
The findings indicate that the next phase of Philippine AI adoption will depend not only on access to technology but also on whether businesses can build the skills, governance and operational discipline needed to deploy it responsibly and at scale.
