BORACAY, AKLAN — The country’s leading distributor of information and communications technology (ICT) unit, serving the world’s largest ICT firms, VST ECS, is urging Filipino firms to get a full grip on artificial intelligence in order not to be left behind among domestic and international counterparts.

In an exclusive interview at the sidelines of the opening of this year’s CXO Tech Summit, VST ECS president and CEO Jimmy Go stressed that 2024 was a critical year for AI as it already transformed the way people and companies do things.

“AI is indeed the next revolution, bigger than inventions and the Internet revolution. It’s (really) something different, and it’s going to drive things very fast,” he said.

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He said if a company remains skeptical and does not adopt and embrace AI in their respective businesses, they might be left behind.

“Things to be done in the manufacturing industry, among other industries, can be shortened when you use AI. In fact, there are a lot of AI tools available that are helpful to businesses, which can make transactions and even work faster, for example, coding. It’s very simple to do nowadays,” he said.

Go said this is the reason why the Philippines is a bit lagging compared to other nations.

“But definitely, we can catch up. One thing that impacts the Philippines very well is the call center industry because they are now utilizing AI chatbots. Probably not that much for the whole BPO industry, but the call center can pull through, as they are creating jobs for Filipinos that are AI-related,” Go explained.