The Philippines’ Next Chapter

A national conversation about the value of our work

Behind every discussion about outsourcing, automation, and productivity are people: a graduate looking for a first opportunity, a parent building a stable career, a team leader preparing colleagues for change.

That is why the International IT-BPM Summit matters beyond the conference room.

Held on September 23–24, 2026, at Okada Manila, the summit carried the theme “Intelligence at Scale: Accelerating the PH Pivot.” IBPAP’s framing was clear: the Philippines must expand its capacity for sophisticated, technology-enabled services and strengthen the combination of talent and trust that supports them.[1][2]

The two-day program connected industry strategy with healthcare, financial services, workforce development, cybersecurity, public policy, and ASEAN. The breadth matters. Building the next phase of the industry requires changes across businesses, education, government, and the places where people work.

For Kababayan Homes, this conversation connects directly to our purpose: helping Filipinos move forward. Understanding how work is changing helps us understand what businesses need, what communities can prepare for, and where better opportunities may emerge.

More revenue. A more demanding path to more jobs.

The summit’s industry outlook points to continued growth, while exposing a relationship that deserves close attention: revenue and employment may increasingly move at different speeds.

Reporting on the President’s Report placed 2027 revenue at approximately US$45 billion and employment at 1.99 million. It also described rising revenue per employee.[3]

The 2028 range is especially important. The upper figure is an accelerated-growth scenario, not a guaranteed outcome. In the slower scenario, revenue rises from the 2025 baseline while employment falls slightly. These scenarios appeared in a roadmap preview; its full release was expected in October.[4]

Coverage of the summit briefing also placed projected 2027 employment growth at roughly 2.6%, compared with around 6% revenue growth. AI-assisted productivity and more valuable services help explain why the industry may earn more without adding people at the same pace.[5]

A growing industry can still contain workers who need help finding their next opportunity.

Our reading is that national success must be measured more broadly: better work, sustainable wages, useful skills, and credible transitions for people whose tasks are changing. Revenue growth matters. So does who participates in it.

Build deeper expertise—and learn to apply AI within it

Summit-related reporting identified global capability centers, healthcare information management, and banking and financial services as growth areas. It also highlighted AI operations, model evaluation, data services, animation, and game development.[6]

For a Filipino professional deciding what to learn, the useful question becomes: What important work can I understand deeply enough to improve, supervise, and take responsibility for?

AI skills become more useful when connected to a field: understanding a customer’s problem, a finance process, a healthcare workflow, a software system, or a creative brief. The following are illustrative development paths, rather than job openings announced at the summit.

Why global capability centers matter

A global capability center, or GCC, is a multinational company’s own operation supporting business or technology functions. Summit coverage reported around 200 GCCs employing approximately 290,000 people in the Philippines, with more companies considering entry or expansion.[5]

For cities seeking investment, the implication is practical: demonstrate that the right people, infrastructure, partners, and management capabilities can come together in one location. A strong proposition explains how a business will operate well from that city.

Make learning part of the working day

The program gave explicit attention to AI-enabling two million Filipino workers. Workshops also addressed co-learning, workforce performance, leadership decisions, and employee resilience.[2]

IBPAP reported training activity reaching 25,500 learners through 164 programs across 24 companies, with more than ₱100 million secured for industry training. These are measures of program reach; they do not establish that every learner has achieved proficiency.[4]

For employers and educators, KH’s recommendation is to bring learning closer to the work itself. Let people practice on appropriate tasks, understand the standards, receive feedback, and demonstrate what they can now do.

• For workers: choose one recurring task, learn an approved way to improve it, and document the result.
• For managers: provide learning time, clear boundaries, and a route from new skills to real responsibilities.
• For schools: build projects with employers that require communication, domain understanding, and verifiable work.

A useful portfolio might show a better customer-response process, a checked analysis, or a functioning workflow—with an explanation of limitations and human review. The evidence should demonstrate judgment alongside tool familiarity.

Care belongs in the transition plan

In Carelon’s post-event account, executive Nicki Agcaoili emphasized that the industry should extend to its own people the care it delivers to clients.[7]

That principle has everyday consequences. People need realistic workloads, managers who explain changing expectations, and credible opportunities to develop. Workers carrying uncertainty should have a place to ask questions without being treated as obstacles to progress.

Useful AI must survive contact with real work

Ascendion’s account of its participation emphasized leadership’s role in enterprise reinvention. Dharam Gurbani’s message was that adopting technology becomes transformation when leaders rethink how the business works.[8]

For a business, that means defining what improvement looks like before scaling a tool. Does the work become more accurate? Does total turnaround time fall after checking and rework? Can the team handle exceptions? Is someone accountable for the outcome?

Verification is a professional skill

Straive’s Anand S shared a firsthand account of his summit workshop focused on questioning assumptions, checking AI behavior, calibrating confidence, and benchmarking relevant tasks.[9]

Our practical interpretation is simple: teams need a repeatable way to establish when an output is dependable. Set acceptance criteria. Consult authoritative evidence. Test realistic cases. Keep a responsible person in the loop where the consequences require it.

A second model can provide a useful cross-check, but agreement between models is not proof. The standard should be evidence appropriate to the task.

IBPAP also reported a voluntary AI governance framework covering governance, data protection, workforce transition, and incident response.[4] For organizations handling sensitive client work, these concerns belong in operating decisions from the start.

Trust is built when people can explain the work, check the result, and take responsibility for what happens next.

Talent needs an environment where it can succeed

The policy conversation addressed tax certainty, Customs modernization, and the practical implementation of incentives. Asian Consulting Group’s session account emphasized predictable requirements and consistent administration as factors in investment decisions.[10]

The lesson for national and local leaders is that competitiveness is experienced in ordinary details: how clearly requirements are explained, how reliably infrastructure performs, and how confidently an enterprise can plan its operations.

The summit also placed ASEAN collaboration on its agenda, including regional scale and AI opportunities.[2] This signals a strategic direction. The public material reviewed for this article does not establish a specific binding regional agreement or quantified investment commitment arising from those sessions.

For Philippine businesses, the useful response is to identify capabilities that regional customers and partners need—and build evidence that we can deliver them consistently.

Choose a place that helps the team do better work

For Cebu and the Visayas, these industry signals invite a more thoughtful conversation about office space.

KH’s interpretation: as revenue becomes less closely tied to headcount, industry growth alone becomes a weaker basis for estimating occupied office space. A company’s actual hiring plans, working arrangements, training needs, and service mix deserve closer attention.

A customer-support operation, a healthcare team, a software group, and a finance center may have different requirements. Good site selection starts by understanding those differences.

These are due-diligence questions, not assurances that any particular building meets the requirements. Each property and proposed use needs verification.

At Kababayan Homes, this is the kind of local understanding we aim to bring to the search: connecting the choice of a property with the business, its team, and the community around it.

A practical place to begin

No single summit can complete this transition. Its value grows when the conversation changes what people do afterward.

1. Workers: build one demonstrable capability.
   Choose a useful task in your field. Practice, verify your output, and show how your approach improves the work.
2. Employers: improve one real process.
   Give a team the time and support to test an approved approach. Measure outcomes, learn from errors, and expand what works.
3. Educators: connect learning to a real requirement.
   Ask an employer what good performance looks like. Build a project that lets learners demonstrate it.
4. Local partners: remove one obstacle.
   Help a business find reliable information, a suitable location, a capable partner, or a clearer path to operating well.

These are KH’s suggested actions, not formal summit commitments. Their purpose is to make a large national challenge approachable without pretending it is easy.

The opportunity is meaningful: Filipino talent taking on more valuable work, companies building stronger operations, and communities gaining more reasons for their young people to build a future close to home.

Reaching that future will require investment, care, and sustained effort. Each successful transition—a worker gaining a capability, a team earning greater responsibility, a business establishing itself well—is progress worth building on.