Why AI is starting to scare workers in the Philippine BPO industry

According to a report by Saritha Rai for Bloomberg News, the Philippines is already facing the impact of AI on jobs, especially in its massive business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. This industry, which includes call centers and various other back-office operations, is expected to generate over $38 billion in revenue this year. The rapid integration of AI tools across the sector is being driven by the same cost-cutting pressures that initially led to jobs being outsourced to the Philippines, and is beginning to profoundly reshape the industry.

According to the report, AI “copilots” have become a common feature in many BPO companies, especially call centers, in recent months. These AI tools assist human agents by taking on tasks such as summarizing customer interactions, processing content, and analyzing sentiment in real time. While this technology is primarily used in customer service, it points to broader changes across the BPO industry.

However, Bloomberg stresses that the speed of this change is troubling for some workers. Christopher Bautista, a 47-year-old veteran of the call center industry, told Bloomberg that after nearly two decades in tech support, he was placed on “floating status” – an unpaid employment arrangement – after his company lost a contract. He attributes this situation to the rise of AI. Bautista eventually left the industry and found work in sales, but remains convinced that AI will soon replace many jobs across the BPO sector.

While stories like Bautista's are currently isolated cases, experts warn they could become more common. Avasant, an outsourcing consulting firm cited by Bloomberg, estimates that up to 300,000 BPO jobs in the Philippines, many of them in call centers, could be lost to AI over the next five years. However, the same analysis suggests that AI could also create around 100,000 new jobs in areas such as algorithm training and data curation. This dual impact presents both a risk and an opportunity for the Philippine BPO sector as a whole.

Bloomberg highlights the importance of the BPO industry, especially call centers, to the Philippine economy. It is the largest employer in the private sector and contributes significantly to the country's gross domestic product. For many Filipinos and Filipinas, BPO jobs offer good income without the need for a university degree or the need to work abroad. Bloomberg points out that the government hoped this industry would help lift more citizens into the middle class and stimulate the creation of other office jobs. However, the advent of AI threatens to derail that plan.

Despite these challenges, the Philippines is not shying away from AI, according to Bloomberg. The country is already a testing ground for many new AI tools, and the government has apparently set up an AI research center and launched various training initiatives to improve the skills of the industry's 1.7 million employees.

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