As AI Reshapes Customer Service, PLDT and Smart Bet on Human Skills

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in customer service and business operations, PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications, Inc. believe the companies that will gain the most from the technology will not necessarily be those that automate the fastest, but those that best combine AI with human judgment, empathy, and trust.

“The future is not about choosing between AI and people. It's about using AI to help our people do what they do best. Technology can help us move faster, work smarter, and serve customers better, but trust, empathy, and human judgment remain irreplaceable. That's why our approach at PLDT and Smart is to put AI in the hands of our people, not in place of them,” said Butch Jimenez, Chief Operating Officer of PLDT.

The topic comes as businesses worldwide grapple with the implications of generative AI on jobs, productivity, and customer engagement. While automation is increasingly handling routine tasks, industry leaders argue that the technology is making uniquely human capabilities even more valuable.

These issues were explored during “The Human Edge in the Age of AI,” a special edition of the PEG-Usapan Natin learning series for employees and stakeholders held as part of PLDT and Smart’s Customer Experience Month celebration. The discussion brought together leaders from business, technology, and customer experience to examine how organizations can harness AI while preserving meaningful human connections.

For Haidee Enriquez, CEO of MicroSourcing Group and President of the Customer Experience Association of the Philippines (CXAP), AI is fundamentally changing the role of people in the workplace and the skills organizations will need to succeed.

“AI isn't making people irrelevant. It's changing where they create the most value. As technology takes on more routine tasks, people will increasingly focus on solving complex problems, managing sensitive customer interactions, building relationships, and making decisions that require human judgment.”

Enriquez emphasized the growing importance of developing T-shaped professionals — individuals who combine deep expertise in a particular field with broader capabilities in technology, analytics, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration.

“The workforce of the future needs to be T-shaped. Having deep expertise in one area will remain important, but people also need the ability to work across disciplines, adapt to new technologies, and understand how AI can improve outcomes. Ultimately, your value will increasingly come from what you know, how you think, and how effectively you use technology.”

That view was echoed by Lloyd Manaloto, Smart Officer-in-Charge, who argued that the discussion around AI should move beyond automation and focus on delivering better customer outcomes. “AI helps us process information faster, but customers don't measure us by how fast our systems work. They measure us by how well we solve their problems. The opportunity is to use AI to understand customers better so we can deliver experiences that are more relevant, more responsive, and ultimately more valuable. At the end of the day, AI is a tool.”

As customer expectations continue to rise, businesses are under pressure to deliver faster resolutions, more personalized interactions, and seamless experiences across channels. Yet industry leaders caution that speed and efficiency alone are not enough.

“Technology has a huge space to help us do our jobs better, to help keep our customers happier, or make them happier with our service. But, at the same time, we still have to maintain that human experience, where customers continue to have the option to speak with a live person and not a bot,” said Abigail Ho-Torres, Chief Marketing Officer of Ikigai Philippines and customer experience advocate.

From a technology perspective, Naveen Asrani, Head of AI Acceleration for Banking, FSI and Digital at AWS, said AI's greatest impact could be its ability to help organizations better anticipate customer needs, reduce friction across customer journeys, and build trust at scale.

Human-centered AI augments people; it doesn't replace them. The goal of enterprise AI isn't to take humans out of the workflow; it's to make them better at it. "The person at the frontline has huge insights, not just about what the customer said. It's also about what the customer feels," he said. Human-centered AI learns from that human input, keeps people in control, and improves continuously. Asrani noted, trust is the real measure of any AI system: the technologies that earn a lasting place in the enterprise will be the ones that consistently deliver on what they promise.

For PLDT and Smart, these insights reinforce a broader approach to AI adoption: using technology to free employees from repetitive tasks so they can focus on higher-value work, from problem-solving and innovation to relationship-building and customer care.

Across the Group, AI is already being integrated into customer-facing operations, network management, and internal workflows. PLDT and Smart have deployed AI-enabled customer service capabilities and self-optimizing network technologies, while expanding the use of Microsoft 365 Copilot to help employees automate routine tasks, accelerate analysis, and improve productivity. The Group has also rolled out AI and innovation upskilling programs to equip employees with practical AI capabilities and prepare them for an increasingly AI-enabled workplace.

The Group is likewise advancing its broader AI agenda through AI.Smart, a one-stop AI workspace that gives Smart and TNT subscribers access to multiple artificial intelligence models and tools through a single browser-based platform. Powered by Avtica, AI.Smart brings together AWS Nova, ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and Thinking Machines in one interface, helping users access and maximize AI capabilities more easily.

Beyond deploying AI tools, the initiative reflects PLDT and Smart's broader approach to innovation: making emerging technologies more accessible and practical while helping customers and employees unlock new ways of working, learning, and creating value.

For PLDT and Smart, the question is no longer whether AI will transform customer experience, but how organizations can use it responsibly and effectively. As AI takes on more routine work, the opportunity shifts toward enabling people to focus on higher-value contributions, from solving complex problems to designing better customer journeys and building stronger relationships.

“In an age where technology is becoming increasingly intelligent, our responsibility is to become even more human. AI can help us scale efficiency, but it is our people who build relationships, earn trust, and create meaningful experiences for our customers,” added Jimenez.

As AI adoption accelerates across industries, PLDT and Smart see the technology not as an endpoint, but as a catalyst for a new era of customer experience, one where speed, intelligence, and automation are matched by deeper understanding, stronger relationships, and more meaningful outcomes for customers and communities alike.