Aboitiz unit expects artificial intelligence to bring more jobs

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) is expected to boost the country’s workforce, the top official of Aboitiz Data Innovation Pte. Ltd. (ADI) said over concerns that emerging technologies will potentially disrupt traditional jobs in the Philippines.

“Artificial intelligence will not replace people. We are critically important and in fact, I can guarantee that the outcome of AI is needing more people because AI is about knowledge and providing information,” David R. Hardoon, chief executive officer of ADI, said in BusinessWorld One-on-One interview.

The interview with Mr.  Hardoon will be streamed on BusinessWorld and The Philippine Star’s Facebook pages, as well as the BusinessWorldTV YouTube page on Sept. 15.

Headquartered in Singapore, ADI is the data innovation unit of the listed holding company of Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc.

One of the top concerns over the changing digital landscape is the emergence of artificial intelligence and how it can potentially replace traditional jobs.

Mr. Hardoon said data and technology would not replace jobs but would create more opportunities in unexplored areas.

“You are not going to wake up someday and no humans have to work on anything, no. We are critically important. The outcome of using AI is needing more people. I have yet to see an organization that needs less people when it has more information and knowledge,” he added.

ADI has also been working towards technology transformation, Mr. Hardoon said, adding that it is integrating and utilizing artificial intelligence for the operations of the units under the Aboitiz group.

For Aboitiz Power Corp., which is the energy company under the Aboitiz group, ADI has tapped the capabilities of AI to advance its operations, Mr. Hardoon said.

“One of the applications we have built and deployed in fact for our power plant is AI-powered asset inspection,” he said, describing it as software that allows visual inspection.

He added that AI is also utilized for its financial units as alternative data allow them to easily identify risks.

Further, Mr. Hardoon said ADI also targets to expand its presence in Asia.

“This is an exciting step, very openly as you know we were born as a company to serve our companies. In that process we are focusing on making AI real, operationalizing it. In that process, we realized that we are solving real problems in the industry. We are now at the stage where we are providing solutions to others. We want to support the industry,” he said.

Mr. Hardoon said that ADI is looking to operationalize AI to support financial space, improving the capabilities of other organizations to accelerate their AI journeys and other industrial areas where advancing AI is deemed critically important.

(The article was originally published by Ashley Erika Jose on BusinessWorld Online.)