The latest State of Service report by Salesforce shows that AI is shifting from automating basic decision trees to reshaping how service teams manage workloads, develop skills, and respond to customer demands.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to handle half of customer service cases in the Philippines by 2027, according to a global survey of 6,500 service professionals, including 200 respondents from the country.
Philippine service leaders identified improving customer experience, strengthening workforce capabilities, and upgrading service technologies as top priorities. These areas are increasingly supported by AI tools designed to improve speed, reduce costs, and raise customer satisfaction.
“AI agents eliminate this trade-off, solving for both scale and quality. Instead of rationing exceptional service, companies can now use AI agents to deliver the immediate, tailored attention of a personal concierge to the mass market,” said Gavin Barfield, vice president and chief technology officer, Solutions, Salesforce ASEAN. “This allows human teams to stop managing queues and start managing the complex, high-value relationships that truly drive growth.”
In this report, the service sector basically means the part of business that helps customers, like call centers, online support, or in-store service teams. It’s all about handling questions, solving problems, and making sure customers get the help they need. The report looks at how AI is starting to take over routine tasks in these roles so human staff can focus on more complicated issues.
Philippine service teams estimate that AI currently resolves about 40% of customer cases. By 2027, they expect that share to increase to 50% as AI agents, also known as digital labor, gain wider adoption. This shift shows the increase of the agentic enterprise, where AI systems work alongside human employees, performing routine tasks while allowing staff to focus on more complex concerns.
Service professionals in the Philippines also expect AI to support revenue growth, projecting that agentic AI could increase upsell revenue by 15%. Beyond organizational gains, AI is also changing daily tasks for service representatives.
Respondents using AI reported spending 20% less time on repetitive cases, freeing about four hours weekly for higher-level tasks. Instead of handling routine requests such as password resets or status updates, employees are focusing more on complex problem-solving and exception handling. Service representatives using agentic AI spend roughly one-fourth of their workweek handling high-complexity cases.
The study also found that AI-enabled service representatives are more likely to mentor colleagues, lead projects across teams, and improve internal processes. They also tend to work with high-value customers and take on leadership responsibilities.
The report noted that about 84% of Philippine service representatives using AI said it created growth opportunities. Around 82% reported developing new skills, while 77% said their roles became more specialized.
Despite the benefits, challenges remain. About 87% of Philippine service leaders said the difficulties they encountered in implementing AI were expected or less complex than anticipated. Security remains the top concern, with 45% saying security issues delayed or limited AI initiatives.
Separate findings from Salesforce’s State of IT: Security report show security leaders remain optimistic about AI agents, citing their potential to improve threat detection, anomaly monitoring, and breach prevention when properly implemented.