PLDT led discussions on artificial intelligence (AI) in helping drive business process optimization for the benefit of enhancing economic activities, progress, and recovery in Cebu during the recent ICT/BPM Summit.

Along with other technical experts in the ICT sector, Paul Edward Alvarez, technology strategy and transformation office technical manager, PLDT, discussed the untapped potential of AI in helping companies drive forward in their digital transformation journeys.

“Demand for machine learning and Ai and data skills continue to increase globally,” Alvarez said. “For companies that have adopted AI, there have been very visible positive effects both on the top line with new services and cost savings in operations.”

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PLDT is currently exploring AI to benefit and enrich the overall customer experience of subscribers. These include enhancing its operations through AI-Ops, better understanding of its customer journey through AI-based analytics, and automating service fulfillment through service orchestration.

“This is technology available today which we can already start with,” Alvarez said. “A lot of enterprises, globally, are just starting, and there is a huge potential that we can miss. We need business leaders today who will make AI part of their business strategies — from the very top of leadership and clearly communicated to the entire organization.”

Highlighting further possibilities with AI, Alvarez stressed how it is estimated that over 40 billion people and devices can be served with AI in the next five years.

“There is a lot of fear with AI but understanding AI will help us do our work better and serve customers better,” he said. “AI has grown to be very powerful – it has given design thinking, lean methodologies, and learning/failing fast a tailor-fit tool for the job.”

To further create the platform ready for the adoption of AI and future ways of working, PLDT is accelerating the rollout of 5G services, constructing new and enhancing existing globally recognized state-of-the-art data centers with Hyperscalers, and aggressively expanding its fiber footprint and network coverage across the archipelago.