The promise of AI — millions of jobs created or destroyed?

I was born in the 1960s, and it would be an understatement to say that the world has undergone a massive change. We grew up without cell phones, video games, personal computers, e-mail, chat, and the internet. I remember back in the early 1980s, after graduating high school, some of our classmates went to Manila to study. As there was still no e-mail and cellphones, we stayed in touch by writing letters. We handwrote letters and mailed them, and it would take a week for the letters to reach Manila. After they received them, they would take a week or two to write back and it would take another week after they mailed it for us to receive it. So, writing and getting a reply took around a month normally.

Today’s generation does not have that patience. When they text or chat, they are used to getting a reply within a minute. If after a few minutes, they don’t get one, they call and ask why there was no reply. And this is true whether the person is in Manila or halfway around the world.

When I was in college, my dream was to own a bookstore, and most of my allowance went to buying records and books. Now most bookstores are gone, and few musicians look forward to making or selling physical records anymore. But as things change, some things stay the same. The artist a hundred years ago made money by holding concerts. Apparently today, most musicians now make money not by making records, but by doing live concerts.

Today, there is another massive development that threatens millions of jobs — AI or artificial intelligence. A famous venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla, even ventured to say that most office jobs might be gone in five years. Receptionists or telephone operators are no longer required. People in tech support can be wholesale replaced as machines answer the calls and converse like humans or reply to e-mails. Computers can now make PowerPoints, and letters, and even dissertations. They can even draft legal contracts on the fly. They can analyze businesses and review documents. They can even make pictures or videos without any actors necessary.

This is particularly threatening to our country, because unlike most of our Asian neighbors, like China, Vietnam, or Thailand, who have become progressive by building factories and producing machines, cars, clothes, food, and consumer products sold all over the world. The Philippines has been left behind in manufacturing. Instead, it attracted a different kind of investment — BPO or business process outsourcing. As of end 2025, it was reported that over $35 billion and close to 2 million jobs were generated by BPOs. The gleaming high rises in Cebu IT Park and Bonifacio Global City light up at night and are testament to the fact that we have been successful in this industry.

The next few years will be crucial to the Philippines. Before the industrial revolution hit England, around 50% of the population was involved in the textile industry. Most of them were afraid to lose their jobs due to industrialization. After 200 years, the ability to make clothes is now largely automated, and faster by over a hundred times. But people went from owning less than 10 pieces of clothes in their lifetime to buying 10 at a time. Millions of people are now employed in the industry. If we know how to adjust, our BPO industry could massively grow — or a million people would be out of a job.

Another example would be the banking industry. A hundred years ago, everything was manual and a bank with a few hundred employees and a handful of branches was already considered big and complex to manage. Then innovations came — computers, networks, the internet, electronic banking, money counters. Suddenly it took just one person to count a few million banknotes instead of several people, and they can do it much more accurately. Suddenly, instead of taking days to send money to another branch, or transfer your money, it now takes seconds. But the same development behind the massive productivity made more people reliant on banking, and banks now grow to have thousands of branches all over the world, and millions more people become employed. Would AI do the same?

Then there is the restaurant industry. Sixty years ago, a trip to a restaurant would mean that you would order a meal and they would cook it. A restaurant with 20 workers would serve 100 diners, and most patrons would stay an hour to enjoy the dinner. Now a similar-sized fast-food restaurant, with the same number of attendants, could serve over 1,000 to 2,000 meals, and many would be served immediately at the counter upon order, and patrons can finish their meal and leave the restaurant in 15 minutes.

What will AI have in store for us? Will it mean that with enough of it that we can all enjoy great living standards and earn even more even if we get to work only three days a week? Or will millions of people become unemployed? It really depends on how we retrain and adjust our way of working and our industries. It can massively push the country up to developed status, or it can whittle us down to even lower depths.

This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or MAP.

Wilson P. Ng, a member of the MAP, is president and CEO of the Ng Khai Development Corp., an ICT systems integrator in the southern Philippines. He also heads various companies in BPO providing service to Japanese and American companies, in network cabling, logistics, and cold storage warehousing.

map@map.org.ph

wilson@ngkhai.com