Smart targets prepaid market with low-cost AI

Smart Communications Inc. is bringing premium artificial intelligence (AI) tools within reach of more consumers as it launches a low-cost service starting at P49 and removing credit card payment barriers.

The wireless arm of PLDT Inc., together with Amihan Global Strategies Inc., launched AI.Smart, powered by Avtica, allowing subscribers to access multiple AI models without a credit card or a monthly subscription.

“Millions of Filipinos already run their lives, their studies, and their online shopping and freelancing on a Smart connection. AI.Smart puts a real AI assistant right beside it, one that understands Filipino, respects your privacy, and can be paid for through your existing prepaid or postpaid account,” Smart First Vice President and Head of Strategy and Corporate Brand Lloyd Manaloto told reporters on Tuesday. 

AI.Smart lets subscribers buy access starting at P49 for seven days, with payments charged directly to their Smart or TNT prepaid or postpaid accounts.

The platform offers four credit packs: Solo at P49 for seven days, Flex at P99 for 14 days, Pro at P149 for 30 days, and Max at P499 for 30 days. Pro and Max packages can also be shared with a team or family.

Subscribers can purchase credits directly through AI.Smart by charging the amount to their mobile accounts and confirming the transaction through a one-time PIN sent via SMS.

AI.Smart lets users work with their own files, draft and summarize documents, create spreadsheets and presentations, generate images, and analyze data. It supports English, Filipino, and Taglish.

The platform runs on a dedicated Amazon Web Services landing zone provisioned for Smart, with inference served through Amazon Bedrock. It provides access to models from Amazon Nova, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines, assigning different models depending on the task.

“We built Amazon Bedrock so that any builder, anywhere, can access the same frontier AI models that power the world’s largest companies. Amihan and Avtica used Bedrock to put those models to work for Filipino students, freelancers, and small-business owners—in their language, at a local price, charged to the mobile account they already have,” AWS Philippines Country Manager Precious Lim said.

According to the companies, files uploaded by subscribers remain private to their respective workspaces and are not used to train AI models. Subscriber data is also encrypted at rest and in transit and is not retained by model providers.

Avtica, on the other hand, sees the rollout as a model that can eventually be replicated in other emerging economies where prepaid mobile services are prevalent.

“The next billion AI users will not come from Silicon Valley. They will come from Manila, Jakarta, Mexico City, Bogotá, Lagos, and Dhaka, and they will arrive on a prepaid phone. This is how AI reaches everyone: not by waiting for prices to fall, but by building locally, pricing locally, and charging to the account people already have. The Philippines is first. The model travels,” Avtica CEO Winston Damarillo said.

Avtica intends to bring the model to other markets across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and South Asia in partnership with telecommunications operators and cloud providers.