PH firms seen unprepared for AI

Only 17% of organizations in the Philippines are ready to utilize and deploy artificial intelligence (AI), with the majority of them expressing concerns about the impact of not adopting these technology advances, a study released on Wednesday said.

In a report issued by Cisco, the technology firm said that about 44% of the organizations in the country are considered chasers or those that are moderately prepared; 35% are followers or those with limited preparedness and about 4% are laggards or those that are not prepared to leverage AI technologies at all.

The report noted that almost all or about 97% of businesses recognized the urgency of adopting AI technologies while its adoption has been slower in the past years.

“AI has so much propensity to help across the business. There’s so many different aspects around how AI can help,” said Carl Solder, Cisco chief technology officer for  Australia and New Zealand.

AI-powered technology will greatly contribute to boosting the digital economy as it is seen to help raise evenues for businesses, Mr. Solder said.

He said driving better levels of proficiency through the use of artificial intelligence is “ultimately going to translate into better customer experiences, better levels of productivity for those organizations, which is hopefully going to drive better levels of profitability and revenue as well.”

The Philippines’ digital economy is projected to reach a value of as high as USD 150 billion by 2030 as the e-commerce boom continues, according to a recent report by Google, Temasek Holdings, and Bain & Company.

According to the report, the country is expected to reach between USD 80 billion and USD 150 billion in gross merchandise value by the end of the decade.

While AI-powered technology is considered revolutionary in the digital landscape, this advancement also comes with great threats amid cybersecurity attacks getting more sophisticated.

Mr. Solder said that while there is a danger in utilizing AI as it can be leveraged to create new forms of compromise, many organizations will benefit from it to also combat any cyber threats in the digital space.

“Analyzing inspecting and understanding and learning about all those new threats then it’s about building the software tool sets on top of that and leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to scan and look across the network in order to identify potential attack vectors, maybe anomalous behavior that might be happening,” he said. — Ashley Erika O. Jose