The Trade Department of the Philippines is sounding the alarm on the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) on hundreds of thousands of jobs in the country's $25-billion business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. "AI has presented itself more than just as a new technology, but as a threat to the current employees servicing the service export industry and the BPO, including the contact centres," the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said in a statement Wednesday. It warned that AI can "potentially diminish 45 to 50 percent of the approximately 1.2 million Filipino employees of the BPO industry."

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