Published October 21, 2026 2:40am
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While the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented new opportunities, its developments have raised concerns about its impact on human labor.
In a report from GMA News Feed, voice-over artist Inka Magnaye’s post about how her mother lost an acting job to AI went viral. Magnaye said that while AI is an instrument, it should not be used to replace human talent.
Workers across different industries have echoed this sentiment. But which jobs are in danger of being affected by AI?
According to the Tokyo-based think tank Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), 76% of work in the Philippines will be highly vulnerable to automation by the year 2030—the highest in Southeast Asia.
Among the industries that will be most impacted are business process outsourcing and information technology, which are among the major employers in the Philippines.
The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) said that the industry is also expecting lower revenue. In its six-year roadmap in 2022, the industry was targeted to generate $59 billion in revenues. However, as of July 2026, this has been lowered to $43 billion to $50 billion.
The IBPAP was also expecting 2.5 million workers to be employed in the industry by 2028. But a review of the roadmap led to the projection being lowered to 1.85 million to 2.14 million. These workers, however, have switched to different employment.
“It has affected some jobs, but based on all the members we’ve talked to, the entry-level jobs that some of the AI trials have affected, those employees have been able to be redeployed,” IBPAP president Jack Madrid said.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) said that around 12.7 million workers in the Philippines have been exposed to generative AI—a type of AI that could make its own text, image, audio, video and computer code.
This does not mean that AI will replace workers immediately; tasks will just become automated.
However, 3.6% of jobs with the highest use of generative AI have a higher chance of job displacement.
According to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, the revenue of the music industry could be reduced by 24%, with audiovisual creators also seeing a reduction of 21% in revenue.
AI ethicist Carl Joe Javier said that this could have a greater effect on Filipino creatives.
“If we have arts, which historically have been undervalued, and then you have tech movements, which also push to undervalue art, because they’re like, “I don’t need artists anymore because this thing can generate images for me.” Because the tech people, they actually don’t really care about art. That’s not their concern. They don’t care about cultural preservation,” Javier said.
Javier said that a number of companies use AI to cut costs. However, is saving money worth risking the quality of the output that a human can do? Would it be possible to put together what a human and AI could do to improve the output?
“When everyone had a computer, look at the productivity, the productivity gains. When you go to the office, and everyone has a computer. Because in the old days, not everyone was assigned a computer. Now that we all have smartphones, we are more productive than we ever were. But none of those devices involved the removal of people,” he said.
Many experts still believe that AI could not replace humans in the workplace. The Harvard Business School said that AI does not have emotional intelligence to solve interpersonal conflict or understand human behavior.
Only humans could make a human connection. AI could still help lighten the load, however.
The ILO had suggested targeting regional and sectoral policies to make sure that people could benefit from generative AI. Workers should be prepared for the changes that this technology could bring.
Workers vulnerable to AI replacement should also be protected.
“I do think that everyone should be pressuring their legislators to pass legislation and regulation. And hindi lang parang may budget for upskilling…All these technologies continue to change the world; how are we going to imagine and situate ourselves within this world? And how are we going to imagine our workforce and our economy within that context? So, kailangan, sana, we have people who are pushing in that direction,” Javier said. —Jean Mangaluz/LDF, GMA News