Philippine enterprise leaders are being urged to treat technology as a central driver of business growth, efficiency, and competitiveness amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, according to the head of VST ECS Phils., Inc., who said the technology is already making groundbreaking impacts across multiple sectors.

"Technology is no longer a department. It is no longer something handed to IT (information technology) and checked on at the end of a quarter," said Jimmy D. Go, chief executive officer (CEO) and president of VST ECS Phils., Inc., in a virtual keynote delivered on the second day of the VST ECS CXO Tech Summit 2026 on Wednesday.

"Technology is the core driver of margin, efficiency, and scale," he added. "The CXOs (C-suite executives) who win are those who stop viewing tech as an operational support mechanism and start viewing it as their primary weapon."

According to Go, after two years of AI demonstrations and pilot projects, leading enterprises are now moving the technology into production — live operational use rather than trial-stage pilots — where it is being used to augment customer service, credit scoring, demand forecasting, document processing, and software development.

Citing reports from Deloitte and Citi, he described 2026 as the year enterprises move beyond experimenting with AI and focus on generating tangible business results. A report from Citi found that 60% of companies that had reached the production or scaling stages of AI adoption reported more than 15% in value creation through productivity gains, cost efficiencies, or revenue growth.

Go pointed to AI's expanding role in healthcare, logistics, finance, and manufacturing, where it is accelerating drug discovery, optimizing supply chains, improving fraud detection, and streamlining production processes. He also highlighted its use in credit scoring to expand access to loans, its automation of routine customer service interactions in the business process outsourcing industry, a major source of Philippine employment, and its assistance to doctors in diagnosis and clinical decision-making.

In software development, AI-powered tools are making coding faster and more efficient, while AI applications in education are helping improve operational efficiency and student outcomes.

With AI disrupting various sectors and the technology advancing rapidly, Go warned that businesses that fail to adopt it risk falling behind their competitors.

"In a fast-moving market, waiting for technology to become 100% stable before adopting it is a death sentence," he said. "By the time it is stable, your competitors have already optimized it, scaled it, and captured the market."

Go acknowledged, however, that infrastructure bottlenecks, talent shortages, and organizational skepticism remain challenges to AI adoption among local businesses. He noted that only 2% of firms have scaled AI beyond pilot projects, while rural areas continue to face connectivity constraints. That figure illustrates how early most local enterprises remain in the adoption cycle, even as the global studies he cited point to measurable gains once AI reaches production.

VST ECS Philippines, one of the country's leading ICT distributors, is helping address these gaps by connecting local enterprises with global technology providers and making advanced technology solutions more accessible, Go said. The company also works with resellers, systems integrators, and enterprise clients to support digital transformation across industries.

He added that the Philippines can position itself as a leader in the global AI-driven economy through strategic investments, supportive policies, and international partnerships that accelerate digital transformation. Turning those ambitions into outcomes will rest on clearing the infrastructure, talent, and connectivity bottlenecks he identified, making the pace at which local firms move beyond pilot projects a development to watch as 2026 progresses.

Founded in 1998, VST ECS Phils., Inc. distributes products from more than 100 global technology brands across various fields, including infrastructure, cybersecurity and cloud, software, and consumer devices. As part of its efforts to help enterprises adopt technology and innovation, the company is holding the VST ECS CXO Tech Summit in Boracay, now in its ninth year. The four-day summit brings together technology leaders and executives to discuss how businesses can integrate AI into their respective industries.

— Edg Adrian A. Eva, BusinessWorld