he Philippine contact center industry is repositioning itself for an artificial intelligence-driven future, betting that automation will enhance – rather than replace – the country’s workforce as the sector shifts toward higher-value customer experience services.
The industry’s 25-year-old trade group, formerly known as the Contact Center Association of the Philippines, officially rebranded itself as the Customer Xperience Association of the Philippines or CXAP, during the Contact Islands 2026 conference in Lapu-Lapu City, signaling the sector’s transition from traditional voice-based outsourcing to AI-enabled customer experience services.
The annual industry gathering, held from May 26 to 28 at Shangri-La Mactan, marked the 10th anniversary of the conference under the theme ‘Reimagining CX, Shaping the World.’
‘Today, we are delivering sophisticated, AI-enabled, multi-channel customer experience solutions to the world,’ Haidee Enriquez, chief executive officer of MicroSourcing and Beepo, who also serves as president of CXAP, said during the event.
‘Our people are no longer simply handling transactions. They are solving problems, building relationships, and creating value,’ Enriquez said, adding that the organization’s new identity reflects the industry’s evolution alongside advances in intelligent technologies.
The rebranding emphasized how the Philippine customer experience sector is adapting to rapid AI adoption while attempting to preserve its position as one of the country’s largest employment generators and export earners.
According to CXAP Chairman Mitch Locsin’s industry report presented at the conference, the contact center-business process management sector posted revenue growth of 6.9 percent in 2025, reaching $33.9 billion from $31.7 billion a year earlier.
Revenue is projected to rise another 5.3 percent to $35.7 billion in 2026 despite geopolitical tensions, policy uncertainty in Western markets and accelerating AI adoption.
The sector accounted for roughly 84 percent of the Philippine IT-BPM industry’s total $40.3 billion revenue in 2025, reinforcing its dominant role in the broader outsourcing industry.
‘The CC-BPM sector’s performance is on track and is expected to remain strong, aligning with the 2028 roadmap targets of the IT-BPM industry,’ Locsin said.
Employment growth has also remained resilient despite concerns that AI could displace customer service jobs.
The industry added more than 60,000 workers in 2025, lifting total full-time employment to 1.68 million, equivalent to nearly 89 percent of the total workforce of the Philippine IT-BPM sector. CXAP expects employment to rise further to 1.73 million this year.
Industry executives said AI is reshaping work structures rather than eliminating jobs outright, with demand increasing for higher-value and specialized functions including customer journey mapping, AI-enabled consulting, procurement support and trust-and-safety operations.
Emerging roles now include AI trainers, prompt engineers, AI maintenance officers and CX AI solutions architects, reflecting the sector’s transition toward technology-assisted services.
‘The core contact center and transactional BPM services are undergoing strong maturity, while growth in higher-value BPM and emerging CC capabilities continue to rise,’ Locsin said.
A CXAP executive survey conducted this year showed that more than half of participating firms are in the ‘moderate adoption’ phase of AI implementation, while 43 percent are already scaling AI technologies across operations.
Generative AI emerged as the most widely adopted technology among surveyed companies, followed by predictive analytics tools, chatbots, agentic AI systems and robotic process automation.
Executives identified talent readiness, implementation costs, data quality and change management as the primary barriers to broader AI deployment.
‘The Philippine CX sector has positioned itself for the next phase of growth as AI transforms global service delivery and creates new opportunities for higher-value, human-led work,’ said Benedict Hernandez, founding board member and president of CXAP.
Industry leaders said the Philippines’ competitive advantage will increasingly depend on combining AI tools with Filipino workers’ communication skills, empathy and customer engagement capabilities.
‘AI is expanding what Filipino CX professionals can do and earn,’ Hernandez said. ‘The country is truly living its next era of CX.’