PLDT has deployed UiPath‘s business orchestration platform across its operations, citing productivity gains as it copes with surging demand for 5G, broadband and satellite connectivity in the Philippines.

The Philippine telco, working with UiPath, embedded agentic AI capabilities into three internal systems to speed up how staff retrieve information, respond to customers and assess risk. The rollout was announced on 10 September.

Cutting research time from days to seconds

The first tool, KAI, handles knowledge retrieval. UiPath says it has cut what used to be a five-day manual research process down to responses delivered in one to three seconds, freeing up an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 hours of manual work a year — roughly equivalent to 12 full-time staff.

A second system, Ellie, works as an internal digital assistant. PLDT says it has cut manual effort by 25 to 35 percent, saved an estimated 18,000 to 25,000 hours a year, and sped up customer response times by up to 80 percent.

The third, ERICA, was deployed in February to handle PLDT’s annual risk reviews. It synthesises data, scores risks and recommends treatments, compressing evaluations that once took two to ten days into a window of five minutes to a day — a 97 to 99 percent cut in manual effort.

Executives point to customer trust

“The UiPath Platform allowed PLDT to transform enterprise knowledge into actionable intelligence,” said Karl Crowther, UiPath’s Area Vice President for Middle East & Africa and South Asia.

Gilbert Gaw, First Vice President and Head of IT and Transformation Office at PLDT and Smart, said the partnership was giving teams smarter ways of working while keeping service consistent as digital demand grows.

PLDT is the Philippines’ largest digital services provider, spanning fixed broadband, mobile and enterprise connectivity through its Smart and PLDT Enterprise arms. The deployment adds to a run of telco automation deals across Southeast Asia as operators lean on AI to manage scale without expanding headcount.