CEBU, Philippines – Technology and innovation experts converged at the Innovation and Technology Summit held in Cebu City from August 17 to 19, to tell Cebu’s small and medium enterprises that the time to use artificial intelligence to boost business efficiency has come.
“When you send an asset or a vehicle out on the field, generally speaking, you don’t know what they’re doing and this is trillions of dollars in cost due to fraud, theft, and this is pretty common after the pandemic, a lot of people aren’t working with the company’s interest in mind,” Pacio said. Pacio also mentioned that their business has also benefitted from the use of AI in improving the code in their operating systems, and hastening email replies to customers in need of their services.Dr. Adrienne Heinrich, the head of the AI and Innovation Center of Excellence at the Aboitiz Data Innovation , shared in a talk during the summit that besides business costs, SMEs can also make their operations more environmentally friendly with AI.
Citing project data from ADI, Heinrich estimated the reduction in average cement strength variance to 20%, adding that there would be a 30 to 50% reduction in power consumption and 20 to 40 tonnes in total carbon dioxide emission reduction per year. Charmaine Co, entrepreneur and president of the Philippine Young Entrepreneurs Association , pointed out in a talk that adopting new technologies like AI is still a major hurdle for some companies due to factors like digital security, financial constraints, and resistance to change.
The entrepreneur explained that in the country, many business-oriented individuals become interested in using a program through non-conventional training or upon seeing influencers implement said tools in their own businesses.