NEWS

AI trends among BPO companies: More than half of them have adopted new technologies

The BPO industry (Business Process Outsourcing) is an enterprise strategy that refers to enterprises outsourcing non-core or highly repetitive business processes to professional service providers in order to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency. According to a survey by the Information and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), more than half of companies are actively integrating AI technology this year, and 10% of companies have fully adopted AI. In particular, positions such as customer service, data processing, and quality assurance are most affected.

Not only is this trend likely to eliminate thousands of low-skilled jobs, it also poses a major challenge to the future development of the BPO industry.  

What is BPO? For example:
An e-commerce company needs a 24/7 customer service team to answer customer questions, such as product information, return and exchange procedures, etc. But setting up its own customer service center was too expensive, so the company outsourced customer service work to a professional customer service center in the Philippines.
Benefits : Cost savings, and professional customer service centers can provide multi-language support.

BPO Labor Protection Controversy: The Hidden Price Behind Low Costs 

For a long time, the BPO industry has been considered to lack perfect labor protection. According to the BPO Industry Employees Network (BIEN), many employees have been fired because their performance did not meet standards, and the establishment of labor organizations is often blocked. In this regard, BIEN calls on the government to pass the BPO Labor Charter Bill (House Bill 8189) to regulate the minimum wage, ensure occupational stability, and improve the labor environment.  

The core reason why the BPO industry attracts international companies is its low-cost advantage, but this has also become one of the reasons why labor rights and interests are not fully protected. Such phenomena have prompted people to question how industries can balance corporate interests and labor rights under the dual pressures of globalization and automation.  

From skills training to human-machine collaboration, can BPO usher in a transformational breakthrough?

The government and enterprises are actively promoting skills upgrading plans, hoping to slow down the impact of job replacement by AI by training workers to master AI-related skills, such as data annotation, AI training and data analysis. However, experts point out that simply learning to operate AI tools may not be enough to ensure employees’ competitiveness. Those who can truly benefit from it are those who can deeply understand and apply AI technology.  

At present, some companies have begun to cultivate employees' abilities in programming, data science and AI ethics, paving the way for human-machine collaboration. However, it remains to be seen whether this strategy is sufficient to support the future of the BPO industry.