Edison Joseph Gonzalez
The rapid rise of agent artificial intelligence in the Philippines outweighs the national legal and regulatory frameworks, and has issued warnings among experts regarding privacy risks, misuse and lack of accountability in both the business and the public sector.
Agent AI differs from traditional automation by taking initiatives, creating content, making decisions, and performing tasks without direct human prompts. Although individual users employ these tools, most companies remain in the exploration stage of responsible implementation.
“If you’re using a large language model, you’re actually using agents,” Doc Ligot, chairman of AI Ethics and Safety at the Philippine AI Business Association, said in an interview with Jack Madrid on Thursday about the BNC’s “trade lecture.” “But you may not be using it in the agent’s way.”
Ligot noted that large companies in the BPO sector, particularly those leading the adoption curve. “Anyone using ChatGpt may not realize that they are using agents,” he said. “But as far as companies are concerned, only large players have started investing seriously.”
He cited three important business applications: content generation, assistant style automation, and process retools. “The content creation is still number one,” Rigott said. “Agent Workflow now allows you to render an entire video or an entire song from the prompt.”
Agent AI is restructuring office work. Companies use it to summarise chats and documents, take real-time meeting notes, and manage back-office tasks. “You attended a meeting where there was a virtual AI that was just a note of what people were saying. Suddenly, you completed the minutes of the meeting,” Rigot said.
He added that these systems often adapt to users over time. “Unless you specifically switch agents that you don’t remember, if you keep interacting with them, it learns a lot about you,” he said. “There was actually this cool prompt, where you literally ask Gemini or Chatgupt, “Tell me what you know about me.” It’s sometimes creepy to realize how much it remembers. ”
Rigaud warned him of complacentness. “You don’t check the spelling of your emails anymore. You don’t check the grammar. You assume this comes out of the bot,” he said. “We are in an age where videos and images are basically unreliable by default.”
Legal safeguards are not continuing to walk. “There is no privacy law that mentions AI. There is no cybercrime law that mentions AI. Even so, you can use AI to carry out privacy and cybercrime,” Rigott said. He added that copyright violations are another gray area as generative AI multiplies.
With the law still pending, Rigott urged businesses to set up their own guardrails. “The moment content generated by your AI enters the public domain, you are accountable,” he said.
He praised the government’s EBET initiative. It funds training through employers as a model of workforce adaptation. “BPOs are already training their employees. They are some of the best in-house training providers out there,” he said. Ligot also called for a broader shift to skill-based employment around qualifications.
When asked how companies should measure returns, Rigott rejected personnel or cost reductions as key indicators. “Costs never really go down. Unless there’s a crisis, personnel will never actually fall,” he said. “What you need to see is throughput. Are your 10 people still working with 10 people?”
He added that Syred’s development is rarely successful. “If you’re limited to one unit or worst case scenario, it’ll be another light or another laptop you buy. It can’t work that way.”
Ligot urged management to engage with AI at a strategic level. “Leaders need upskills too. And the upskills they need are in these strategic issues. What is my investment cost, what is my ROI, how do I go back through the process?” he said.
“Whatever you use AI, if you can connect to one of these issues, such as cash flow, customer retention, throughput, etc., I guarantee approval,” he added. “In the end, your business will only grow if your output grows faster than your cost. AI can help you do it, but only if you know the problem you are solving.”
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