The Philippines is already using artificial intelligence (AI), often before it has decided what rules should govern it. That gap between adoption and preparedness is where the real story lies.

On paper, the country has been moving briskly. The Department of Trade and Industry launched the National AI Strategy Roadmap (NAISR) 2.0 in July 2024, while other agencies have pushed their own AI initiatives, including work on ethical guidelines for government use.

International benchmarks suggest the Philippines is not starting from zero. In the Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, the country rose from 56th in 2024 to 49th in 2025, pointing to incremental progress rather than a structural shift. The 2025 results show strong scores in policy capacity (84.50) and governance (70.84), but weaker performance in AI infrastructure (48.11) and development and diffusion (42.46)—a reminder that genuine readiness hinges less on frameworks than on technological depth and broad-based adoption.

In practice, AI readiness is constrained by basic connective tissue: broadband, data systems, computing power, and skills. On broadband affordability alone, the World Bank has been blunt, estimating that fixed broadband in the Philippines costs about 11% of gross national income (GNI) per capita, roughly twice the ASEAN average, with mobile broadband also priced above regional norms. This is not a marginal issue: without affordable connectivity, AI adoption will remain concentrated in Metro Manila and among the largest firms, turning access into an unseen barrier to wider participation.

The World Bank’s own project documents underline how much basic work remains, targeting a rise in households connected to fixed broadband services (25.6% in 2022 to 35% by 2026) and a reduction in the cost of the fixed broadband basket (11.3% of GNI per capita in 2022 to 8.5% by 2026).

A similar gap appears in skills, where ambition outpaces capacity. An Economist Impact survey of workers in the Philippines found employees prioritized AI and machine-learning skills at 42.3%, above the regional average of 32.8%, while also citing poor internet access and time constraints as key barriers to upskilling.

That imbalance is also evident in how AI is being taken up by businesses. In the private sector, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) has pointed to early-stage adoption. A PIDS-cited finding puts the share of firms using AI technologies at 14.9% (as of 2021), suggesting AI remains concentrated among larger, urban, and digitally mature businesses rather than broadly embedded across the economy.

If uneven capacity explains where AI is being adopted, trust and governance explain how far it can safely go. In a country with an election-heavy political calendar and a noisy information ecosystem, those fault lines matter. UNESCO’s AI Readiness Assessment for the Philippines, completed with government partners and published in December 2025, framed the issue in ethical terms and called for clearer leadership and coordination across sectors.

As UNESCO representative to the Philippines Maki Katsuno-Hayashikawa put it, “It is critical for ethics to be the foundation of AI governance.” That is not philosophical window-dressing. Without credible guardrails—privacy, procurement standards, model transparency expectations, accountability when systems fail—AI becomes either a reckless shortcut or an expensive pilot that never scales.

Security agencies have been treating this as operational, not theoretical. In an Associated Press report on a Philippine military directive restricting certain AI-powered applications, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. warned of “significant privacy and security risks,” linked to identity theft, phishing, and social engineering. That kind of caution can be read two ways: as an overreaction to new technology, or as a sign that state institutions are beginning to internalize what AI changes—how easily synthetic media and data-harvesting tools can move from novelty to vulnerability.

So, is the Philippines ready for AI? It depends on which Philippines you mean.

If “ready” means having a declared national direction, an expanding set of public initiatives, and a growing conversation about ethics and governance, then yes—progress is visible, and international bodies are treating the country as engaged rather than absent.

If “ready” means affordable high-quality connectivity, widespread data capacity in government, a deep bench of AI talent, and broad business adoption outside the largest firms, then the answer is not yet.

The country looks better at drafting plans than at providing the inputs that make plans real: cheaper broadband, stronger R&D and innovation financing, modernized public data systems, and skills development that reaches workers where they are.

The evidence supports a cautious conclusion. The Philippines is laying the groundwork for artificial intelligence, but it is not yet ready to deploy it at national scale. What happens next will depend less on ambition than on basics that can be tested and enforced: affordable connectivity, usable public data, competent procurement, resilient cybersecurity, and education systems that convert interest into capability.

Until those foundations are in place, AI adoption will remain uneven—decisive for a small set of firms, limited across much of the economy, and disruptive where trust breaks down.

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