That’s what the practical use of AI in the Philippines looks like today.
AI Is the New Electricity. Now What?
“AI is the new electricity.”
That quote from Andrew Ng, Coursera founder and Stanford professor, is more than just a metaphor—it’s a roadmap. In our recent podcast, Sir Allan Tan, an educator and startup founder, broke it down with one clear idea: If AI is electricity, then we need to start building appliances.
The question isn’t “Should we use AI?” It’s already here. The better question is: “How can we build with it?”
That’s what the practical use of AI in the Philippines looks like today.
You Can’t Just Plug In—You Need to Build
Electricity without appliances is useless. Same goes for AI.
AI as a tool can analyze, predict, automate, and optimize. But unless it’s connected to a use case, it’s just code in the cloud.
Sir Allan shared examples across different sectors:
- In agriculture, imagine AI reading soil data, weather forecasts, and planting schedules to give personalized advice to farmers.
- In manufacturing, AI systems can help forecast demand or even detect defects before they leave the line.
- For local government, AI can help flag unusual budget patterns or automate processing of documents.
But none of these “appliances” will build themselves. That’s where local innovation and sector knowledge come in.
Tools Made for Our Problems
Here’s where it gets personal.
Filipino innovators, developers, and professionals need to stop thinking of AI as a far-off concept. Start thinking about it like a toolbox—and ask what we can build.
This was the core message of our talk. AI isn’t just about replacing humans. It’s about amplifying humans, using their local knowledge and pairing it with machine capability.
The practical use of AI in the Philippines means solving local problems with local context.
Wrapping Up: The Next Big Builders
AI is standard. It’s no longer a “nice-to-have.” The question is: what will you build with it?
Sir Allan and I both believe the future belongs to those who pair creativity and context with technology. Because the value of AI doesn’t come from the tech—it comes from how we apply it.
Let’s not wait for Silicon Valley to build our appliances. Let’s build our own.
🎧 Catch the full conversation on the podcast.
🛠 Have a use case in mind? Let’s collaborate.
📲 Visit techtribe.media for more episodes, articles, and updates.