The IT-business process management (ITBPM) industry allays fears of jobs fallout arising from the Generative AI stating it is more of an enabler that would only provide upside for its growth targets of achieving $59 billion revenues and 2.5 million jobs by 2028.

This was pointed out by the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), which groups 150-ITBPM firms, as they announced the holding of the annual Contact Islands Conference with the theme “*The Philippines, the Heart of CX*,” on July 26-28 in Mactan, Cebu.

CCAP President Mickey Ocampo said the impact of Generative AI agent assist could reflect in the sector’s figures in two to four years. He also clarified that the emerging technology was not factored in when the IT-BPM Roadmap was set “because it surfaced just about seven months ago although AI has already been widely used across the industry.”

Thus, part of the Cebu is the annual review of the industry’s 2028 Roadmap.

Ocampo said that talent and infrastructure development are the two most important factors needed by the industry to sustain growth, not AI.

“AI is good for the industry,” said CCAP Managing Director Rosario Cajucom-Bradbury.

In fact, she said, there is no hindrance to achieving the industry’s growth targets as a result of the Generative AI agent assist, but it is just a matter of how to propel growth to maximum target.

Cajucom-Bradbury explained that the 1.1 million additional jobs by 2028 is the best scenario with or without AI. This would only mean there are factors that need to be enhanced to accelerate growth. The most critical factor, she said is talent. “We need to do a lot of upskilling and reskilling,” she said.

This also means attuning the government’s K12 curriculum to ensure that graduates are employable.

Cajucom-Bradbury explained that Generative AI Agent Assist will provide the agent all the historical date that would be needed to answer and resolve the concern of the caller. “This will improve the efficiency of the agent, enhance the customer experience and at the end of the day make the operation more productive,” said Cajucom.

Instead of the agent navigating all the tools in the internet to answer the caller’s questions, the agent can become an active listener to the customer. “That itself enhances the customer experience and employe experience,” she added.

She further stressed that the use of Generative AI Assistworking alongsideagents when handling calls increases their efficiency, productivity, and resolution in handling customer service. “Thus, the call agent is provided with the opportunity to have more focused active listening and genuine empathy rather than being pre-occupied in navigating the system for resolution. Filipinos’ innate trait on service orientation combined with the power of Generative AI enhances the employees experience at work that translates to an even more satisfying customer experience—therefore, helping the Philippines retain being the ‘heart of CX’ and at the same time, meeting or even exceeding growth targets," Cajucom-Bradbury added. In addition, the generative AI Assist will also help shorten the five-month learning curb of an agent to only two months, she added.

With quality control and data bases being covered by the generative AI agent assist, the agent will now be able to handle more complex jobs.

In fact, Cajucom-Bradbury cited a recent Stanford study in the US on PH BPO industry with Filipino agents, which showed that adopting Generative AI Agent assist increases by 13 to 15 percent the productivity of agents.

For his part, CCAP Director Pushkar Misra said that on the contrary, the use of Generative AI will create more jobs because it will lead to more questions and validations and new functions.

He further noted that AI can actually make the industry focus on more value adding transactions rather than the basic level transactions.

“Definitely AI provides an upside and only serve to accelerate growth of industry,” he said in terms of revenue generation, number of jobs, and profitability.

He said that all ITBPM providers are expected to adopt AI assist, although at different levels of staging and as such the level of adoption will vary depending also of their clients as some clients might not be open to the use of AI as yet.

But he said that generative AI agent assist is expected to reduce cost, transaction time and improve the quality of transaction

“People have to move up the vale chain so the next level of technology is a huge opportunity,” he said.

“It does not really make some tasks obsolete, but instead, it reinforces the need for upskilling and re-skilling of talents, which are already being done across the industry,” he said. The country’s contact center sector has set an annual revenue target of $59 billion by 2028—about $49 billion of which is expected from CCAP-member companies. The sector has posted an actual revenue of $27 billion in 2022, which accounts for 84 percent of total revenue of the IT-BPM industry ($32 billion). The aggressive target is part of the 2028 IT-BPM Roadmap, which was launched in the third quarter of 2022, coinciding with the start of the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos Jr. It also sets a target of 2.5 million full-time employees (2.3 million to be accounted for by CCAP-member firms) and a 40 percent countryside expansion. In 2022, the contact center sector employed 1.4 million individuals, which is 87 percent of the 1.6 million total employment of the local IT-BPM industry.