Listed technology firm Xurpas Inc. is encouraging businesses to start digitally transforming their internal systems and overall operations amid the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) in the global business landscape.

In a media briefing on Thursday, Jan. 11, Xurpas Chairman and CEO Joey Gurango said that as a business, they are heavily invested in AI, and optimistic that AI will continue being a business driver for the entire economy.

In order to fuel that optimism, Xurpas is pushing its unit Xurpas AI Lab (XAIL) as a service to help more Filipino businesses, whether large corporate entities or micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), integrate AI or jumpstart their digitization processes.

Gurango said that the formula for predicting the success of AI integration in businesses is “digital maturity times clarity of strategy.”
. 
“The more digitally mature an organization is, the more clear the strategy is that they will apply AI to, the more likely it will succeed,” he said.

Although it depends based on the unique conditions of the companies, Xurps Chief Operating Officer J.V. Colayco emphasized the importance of companies knowing their exact problems and strategies for resolving the issues with AI, as well as having an organized collection of data.

“If you actually look at applications of data science in a global perspective, 85 percent fail. There's a huge failure rate [since] they failed to integrate strategies and data governance first. They just jumped in the process,” shared Kevin Anthony Sison – Program Leader for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence with the Singapore Management University x Emeritus.

Gurango noted that aside from businesses, the company also aims to assist more national government agencies (NGAs) and local government units (LGUs) this year, citing ongoing collaborations with at least five NGAs and 16 LGUs.

“The road to AI is digital transformation. Unless you're digital, you can't really implement AI. Although most of these are public sector organizations that want to get into AI, in most cases we find that they first have to take the initial step. Most of our LGUs are not yet digitized, especially in those areas of their operations that are constituent-facing,” he said.

“The jump is not that big. It's very easy for them to collect the data. If we're able to engage with the LGUs within 12 to 18 months, they will be able to start applying AI into their operations,” Gurango added.

In regards to NGAs, the firm recognizes the different scope needed in technology transformation of their internal systems and manpower, along with the tensions between in-house and outsourced technicians.

In determining the spaces in which they can guide and fill the gaps, Gurango said that around 50 percent or more of NGAs’ information technology (IT) requirements can be outsourced, or “anything that does not have to do with the core competencies of the agency.”

As a company, Xurpas is expecting the direct contribution of AI in their solutions and products to be 100 percent in the next 18 to 24 months, given their extensive efforts to infuse AI gradually in their products and services.

“Today, direct contribution of AI is around 20 percent or less. We expect that all that we do, all our revenues we derive will somehow be impacted by our AI initiatives [by 2025],” he remarked.

Moreover, the firm’s capital expenditures (CAPEX) for 2024, which will be released this April, will mostly revolve around upskilling and training of their workforce in data engineering and automation for instance, said Xurpas President and Chief Financial Officer Alexander Corpuz. They are also extending this to schools like Filamer Christian University in Roxas City, Capiz to educate students on data science and AI.