Department of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto and the Netherlands' ING Bank discussed ways to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the Philippines.

"This year, ING is set to launch its pioneering use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the Philippines, making it the next country after the Netherlands and Germany to host live GenAI applications," DoF said in a Facebook post.

"The bank also underscored its commitment to further investing in the Philippines’ workforce by developing advanced skill sets," DoF added.

Recto exchanged economic and business opportunities in the Philippines with ING chairman of the Supervisory Board Karl Guha and chief executive officer Steven van Rijswijk on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. The forum ran from 20 to 24 January.

GenAI is a computer application that collects online data, analyzes them, and transforms them into new text, photo, audio, and video content.

Financial firms use the technology to quickly answer customer inquiries, detect credit risks, and generate ideas for new products and strategies.

"Over the next couple years, we’re going to see GenAI embedded into every thing that we do. Whether those are creative tasks like creating videos or logos or diagrams, or analytical, like programming or report writing, we’ve now got basically a digital brain that we can use to help us accomplish our goals," PwC head for GenAI in Asia Pacific Scott McLiver said.

ING employs at least 6,000 Filipinos and serves corporate clients in the Philippines.

In July last year, the Marcos administration launched the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Roadmap 2.0 to quickly upskill Filipinos in helping increase their incomes through emerging technology-related jobs.

A survey by Microsoft Philippines reveals 83 percent of the country’s labor force are already bringing their own AI tools to work. This is higher than the world’s average of 78 percent.

Through AI, PwC says companies can grow faster and brainstorm AI-assisted jobs as the technology increases their profit margins by at least 20 percentage points.