Xurpas aims to become top AI enabler in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — Listed technology company Xurpas Inc. is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) through its new AI and data science unit, Xurpas AI Lab (XAIL).

XAIL aims to become the top partner for AI enablement in the Philippines, said Xurpas chief technology officer and general manager Fernando Jude Garcia.

“With a comprehensive set of services and products designed to achieve tangible success for our clients, we aim to become the top partner for AI enablement in the Philippines who will help local industries navigate this quickly evolving landscape,” Garcia also said.

He said AI is unlocking the potential of industries around the globe and that Philippine businesses should catch up.

“To stay competitive, Philippine businesses need to seriously consider how they can integrate AI into their operations as well as train their workforce to adapt these new innovations,” Garcia said.

In the Philippines, however, AI readiness remains low.

Global tech giant Salesforce, in a recent report, said the Philippines ranks last in overall AI readiness among 12 countries assessed across Asia-Pacific.

Factors considered include digital evolution, digital governance, the number of AI startups and human capital.

Furthermore, it was also reported that businesses that use AI saw the biggest gains in productivity.

According to Nielsen Norman Group, AI can potentially improve employee performance by at least 66 percent.

In the Philippines, the public sector is also seeing the value of AI.

The Asian Institute of Management Analytics, Computing, and Complex Systems Laboratory and Master of Science in Data Science program worked on two projects that aimed to improve service delivery in two government agencies – the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Freedom of Information Project Management Office.

“They helped the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas build an AI-driven decision support tool that cut down the evaluation and validation time of 2,000 financial statements that normally took 20,000 man-hours to just 11 minutes,” Garcia said.

They also assisted the Freedom of Information Project Management Office in implementing AI to reduce the turnaround time per request from two to four days to 32 seconds.

“In the grander scheme of things, AI can really help the country’s economy grow at a pace faster than what we’ve seen before,” Garcia said.