AI literacy to help SMEs stay on top

By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Reporter

SMALL and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Philippines should focus on artificial intelligence (AI) literacy to stay ahead of the game, according to US-based software company Salesforce.

“If you’re going to learn a whole new way of doing things, that’s a bigger learning gap,” Mick Costigan, vice-president of the futures team at Salesforce, said in a video interview.

“I would always encourage people to think about literacy, experimentation and what they can learn from playing around with the tools,” he added.

Salesforce specializes in customer relationship management software by integrating companies’ marketing, sales and service functions.

Last year, the company launched Agentforce, which provides fully customizable and autonomous AI agents that allow personalized client interactions.

“It’s easy to buy a software-as-a-service product that works in isolation but having everything connected with AI so that you’re doing sales, service and marketing from the same platform is becoming much more valuable again,” Mr. Costigan said.

“Small and medium-sized companies that adopt the whole Salesforce platform are going to find themselves advantaged in the next few years,” he added.

Autonomous agents are seen to take over the next wave of AI, which could serve as an “extra pair of hands” despite limited resources, Kris Billmaier, Salesforce executive vice-president and general manager for sales cloud and self-service and growth products, said in the company’s small and medium business report released this year.

“Small and medium businesses embracing AI today are already seeing clear returns: increased productivity, personalized customer experiences and revenue growth,” he said.

However, many SMEs in the Philippines struggle with AI adoption due to minimal government support, limited funding and lack of awareness.

“Over the last few years, one of the things we’ve done, having been focusing on bigger companies as we grew, is we re-energized the product offering that we have for small and medium-sized enterprises,” Mr. Costigan said.

Salesforce is set to launch its operations in the Philippines this year, including plans to empower micro, small and medium enterprises by equipping them with advanced digital tools.

It also serves major players in the country’s power, telecommunications and banking industries.