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Davos 2026 just wrapped up. Sa mga hindi nakakaalam, it's the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held January 19-23 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. World leaders from government, business, civil society, and academia converge to discuss global issues and set priorities.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang made it clear at Davos that AI isn't just another tech trend but the biggest infrastructure project humanity has ever attempted. Trillions needed. Siyempre, CEO siya ng isang kompanyang heavily invested sa AI so talagang gustong nya itong mag-work.

Huang explained AI as five layers, bottom to top:

The key insight? You can't build the top without everything underneath. Parang sa energy requirement pa lang lugi na ang Pilipinas.

But Job Displacement Looms Large

Davos wasn't all optimism. Anthropic's Dario Amodei said we're six to 12 months away from AI doing most software engineering jobs. Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis predicted that AI would hit internships and junior roles this year. Ouch. Ito yung meme na “we accept fresh graduates with at least two years work experience.”

BlackRock's Larry Fink was blunt. If AI does to white-collar workers what globalization did to blue-collar workers, we need credible plans for broad participation in gains, not vague promises. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon warned of civil unrest if self-driving trucks replaced 2 million US truckers overnight.

Pero interesting ang contrast. Huang himself kept repeating "jobs, jobs, jobs" when talking about AI infrastructure creating work for plumbers, electricians, and steelworkers. Energy sector, chips industry, infrastructure layer, all are creating jobs daw. Labour union leaders weren't buying it, though. As UNI Global Union's Christy Hoffman put it, AI is being sold as a productivity tool, which often means doing more with fewer workers.

What This Means for the BPO Capital of The World

At Davos, the conversation was about job displacement. AI is making things efficient, reducing the need for people. Do the math. If AI can handle customer inquiries, process documents, moderate content, and transcribe medical records, that's not some distant American problem. That's our economy.

That’s a direct threat to the Philippines, the BPO capital of the world. BPOs here handle customer support, content moderation, data entry, back-office processing, tech support, accounting services, and medical transcription. Millions of jobs. Billions in revenue. But all of these can be offloaded to AI.

Recently, I've been getting AI-generated cold calls from local banks na inaalok akong kumuha ng car loan or insurance. Voice AI is slowly replacing real people doing outbound sales. AI is positioning itself as the cost-effective option, and multinational companies are listening.

The actions of countries that can build AI affect the BPO industry in the Philippines. ‘Wag na tayong tumigin sa macro. Let’s look sa mga breadwinner or padre de pamilya na employed sa mga BPO companies. For corporate decision-makers, the cost savings from AI are like a pot of gold. It’s hard to ignore, especially given how expensive human labor can be, because you have to consider benefits like healthcare and retirement. That’s the brutal math behind it.

Moreover, Huang said manufacturing-strong regions have opportunities in robotics. That’s physical AI. Aside from BPOs, many Filipinos abroad are probably working in factories. Once these factories adopt robots, layoffs will occur, and OFWs will be unemployed and won’t be able to send remittances back to their families.

Here’s a little brain teaser. Now that we are at a crossroads, do we even have a seat at the table when it comes to how AI impacts jobs, or are we just the labor being optimized away?

While world leaders debated AI's impact at Davos, Rep. Brian Poe stepped up to the Philippine Pavilion with a message: we're legislating before disruption becomes crisis.

Poe presented the House's AI governance framework, centered on House Bill No. 1196. This creates the Artificial Intelligence Development Authority—yes, they're calling it AIDA—to lead national AI strategy and ensure transparency in education, employment, and public services. Di ko bet yung AIDA as the agency name. Ang panget lang pakinggan.

The timing is critical. UNESCO data shows 62% of young people worldwide use AI tools at work, but 48% feel unprepared. In the Philippines, over 60% of students use generative AI for academic work, while 70% of educators integrate AI into teaching—often without unified standards.

The House paired AI governance with House Bill No. 2766, the Career Transition Assistance Act, providing free reskilling, income support, and job-matching for workers displaced by automation. The World Economic Forum projects 40% of global working hours may be affected by AI soon.

This legislation directly addresses the fear of job displacement. The Philippines can't avoid AI disruption, pero we can prepare for it.

But legislation is one thing, execution is another. AIDA (still cringe) needs actual funding and technical capacity. We've seen beautiful frameworks fail at implementation. The real test isn't the Davos presentation, it's back home when these bills actually have to regulate AI systems affecting millions of Filipino workers.

At least we're at the table. Better to shape the conversation than react to someone else's rules later.

Speed-Read Business Reports Like an Executive

I saw this from AI Prompt Hackers, and it's a game-changer for anyone drowning in reports. The idea? Instead of summarizing everything, ask AI to extract only what executives actually care about.

Their approach is simple but brilliant: Feed AI your report and ask it to identify the top 3-5 priorities based on strategic importance, actionable data, and business impact. For each priority, AI should give you the one-sentence takeaway, the supporting metric, why it matters, and where it's discussed in the document.

Their approach is simple but brilliant. Feed AI your report and ask it to identify the top 3-5 priorities based on strategic importance, actionable data, and business impact. For each priority, AI should give you the one-sentence takeaway, the supporting metric, why it matters, and where it's discussed in the document.

What makes this powerful is the focus. You're not wasting time on summarization. You're getting decision-making intelligence ranked by urgency, backed by numbers, formatted for action.

Is this AI or not?

The image above is AI 😆

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