PLDT's Agentic AI Strategy Earns Top Recognition for Enterprise Transformation

PLDT, a major digital services provider in the Philippines, has garnered a prestigious Silver Award at the 2026 UiPath AI Breakthrough Awards, recognizing its pioneering application of agentic AI to revolutionize enterprise operations.

The telecommunications giant has successfully deployed a suite of in-house artificial intelligence agents, leveraging the UiPath platform, to reclaim tens of thousands of hours previously dedicated to manual tasks across critical business functions. This strategic implementation underlines a significant shift in how large enterprises are adopting advanced AI to drive efficiency, foster innovation, and redefine workforce engagement. The recognition by UiPath, a global leader in business orchestration and automation, highlights PLDT's forward-thinking approach in integrating sophisticated AI solutions into the very fabric of its operations, setting a benchmark for digital transformation in the region and beyond.

Redefining Sales Efficiency with AI Co-Pilots

At the forefront of PLDT's AI-driven transformation is the innovative deployment of 'Ellie', an AI-powered assistant, designed to revolutionize enterprise sales operations. Ellie, whose name stands for Enablement & Intelligence Engine, functions as a sophisticated agentic AI layer, seamlessly orchestrated on the UiPath Platform. Its primary role is to aggregate disparate enterprise knowledge and integrate real-time customer relationship management (CRM) data, providing sales teams with actionable intelligence precisely when needed. This intelligent assistant significantly reduces the burden of manual work for sales support teams, particularly by automating the creation of bespoke, customer-ready proposals and presentations. By taking over these time-intensive tasks, Ellie ensures that sales professionals can dedicate more of their energy and expertise to direct customer interaction and strategic engagement.

The impact of Ellie's deployment on PLDT's sales efficiency has been substantial. The company estimates reclaiming between 18,000 and 25,000 hours annually, freeing up valuable human capital to focus on higher-value activities and deepen customer relationships. Sales teams have reported a notable improvement in productivity, with a 40% to 60% reduction in the time spent on developing standard proposal and presentation materials. Furthermore, the accuracy of these crucial documents has also seen a significant boost, with proposal error rates decreasing by 40% to 50%. This increased efficiency and accuracy directly contribute to enhanced customer satisfaction and a stronger competitive edge. Beyond operational improvements, Ellie acts as a strategic co-pilot, continuously monitoring key customer health indicators. Through AI-driven predictive analytics, it identifies potential churn risks, such as declining product utilization or delayed payments. This proactive monitoring triggers timely alerts for relationship managers, providing them with retention recommendations and highlighting potential upsell opportunities, ultimately leading to a reported 20% to 50% increase in upsell rates.

Building a Foundation for Agentic Enterprise

PLDT's ambitious vision extends beyond individual departmental enhancements, aiming to embed AI at the core of its enterprise architecture. This holistic approach is designed to eliminate manual bottlenecks across the organization, effectively future-proofing its operations and empowering Philippine businesses to scale at the accelerated pace of the modern digital economy. The integration of agentic AI is viewed not merely as a tool for automation but as a fundamental shift in operational philosophy, fostering a more agile, responsive, and intelligent enterprise.

In addition to the highly successful Ellie, two other pivotal initiatives are driving this comprehensive transformation: KAI and ERICA. KAI, an acronym for Knowledge, Automation, Intelligence, represents a dramatic overhaul of knowledge retrieval processes. What once required a manual research period of up to five days now yields contextual responses within mere seconds, typically one to three seconds. This agentic AI assistant is meticulously grounded in approved internal sources, ensuring accuracy and reliability. KAI effectively eradicates repetitive research for proposal generation and customer support, creating an annual productivity capacity equivalent to approximately 12 full-time employees. This translates to an estimated saving of 25,000 to 30,000 hours of manual effort each year. The 99% faster response rate significantly enhances organizational capacity without necessitating additional headcount, allowing teams to transition from mundane information gathering to higher-value, consultative roles.

The third key component, ERICA, or Enterprise Risk Intelligence Companion Agent, addresses the critical domain of risk management. ERICA is an AI agent engineered to automate the structuring and scoring of risk statements against established compliance standards. Its deployment has yielded remarkable results, reducing manual effort in risk assessments by an astounding 97% to 99%. Tasks that previously consumed two to ten days can now be completed within five minutes to one day, dramatically accelerating the pace and accuracy of risk identification and mitigation. These initiatives collectively underscore PLDT's commitment to building a truly agentic enterprise, where intelligent automation supports and amplifies human capabilities across all functions.

The Strategic Value of Advanced Automation

PLDT's success story illustrates the profound strategic value derived from advanced automation and agentic AI. The company's leadership recognizes that in the rapidly evolving digital landscape, maintaining a competitive edge requires not just adopting new technologies but fundamentally rethinking operational paradigms. By empowering its workforce with intelligent tools that automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, PLDT allows its employees to engage in more strategic, creative, and customer-focused work. This shift not only enhances productivity but also significantly improves employee morale and job satisfaction, transforming roles from data processors to strategic contributors.

The deployment of these AI agents also generates a wealth of data that can be analyzed to further refine processes and identify new areas for improvement. The continuous monitoring capabilities of systems like Ellie provide real-time insights into customer behavior and operational performance, enabling PLDT to make data-driven decisions swiftly. This agile approach to business operations is critical for a digital services provider operating in a dynamic market like the Philippines, where customer expectations are constantly rising and technological advancements are rapid. The ability to quickly adapt, optimize, and innovate is a cornerstone of PLDT's future growth strategy, heavily supported by its investment in advanced AI.

Industry Recognition and Future Implications

Receiving a Silver Award at the 2026 UiPath AI Breakthrough Awards is a significant validation of PLDT's innovative strategy and its execution. Gilbert Gaw, PLDT and Smart First Vice President and Head of IT and Transformation Office, expressed pride in the achievement, emphasizing that technology is central to how PLDT serves its customers and supports the country's burgeoning digital needs. He highlighted the dedication of the teams behind Ellie, KAI, and ERICA, noting that this recognition fuels their drive to continue pushing the boundaries of agentic AI's potential for the business and its customers.

Karl Crowther, Area Vice President for the Middle East & Africa and South Asia at UiPath, lauded PLDT for setting a new global standard for AI-driven telecommunications providers. He underscored how PLDT's combination of AI agents with UiPath's business orchestration capabilities is fundamentally transforming work processes, liberating employees to pursue higher-value opportunities and establishing a new benchmark for intelligent, connected operations. This commendation from a leading automation vendor reinforces the impact and scalability of PLDT's AI initiatives, positioning the company as a leader in enterprise AI adoption. The Financial Times was among the outlets covering this announcement, bringing attention to PLDT's significant strides in AI integration.

Why it matters

PLDT's success with agentic AI holds critical implications for in-field AI applications, technicians, telco operations, and data centers. For telco and data center operations, intelligent automation like Ellie, KAI, and ERICA demonstrates how AI can streamline complex processes from sales and customer support to risk management, leading to significant cost savings and improved service delivery. Technicians benefit from faster access to knowledge (via KAI) for problem-solving and reduced manual tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-level technical challenges and proactive maintenance. The predictive analytics used by Ellie to identify churn risks and recommend retention strategies directly impacts customer satisfaction and reduces churn, a key metric for telcos. Furthermore, the operational efficiency gained across these departments can translate into optimized resource allocation, better network management, and enhanced infrastructure utilization, all crucial for maintaining a competitive edge in the rapidly expanding digital services landscape. The adoption of agentic AI not only transforms internal workflows but also ultimately enhances the end-user experience, solidifying PLDT's position as a digital services leader.