According to Glenn Estrella, vice president of Globe Business, cost and budget constraints have long been among the main reasons many MSMEs are hesitant to pursue digital transformation.
Estrella said that if cost and budget were the main concerns, some providers offer free trials to small businesses before requiring them to subscribe to their lowest-priced plans, which ranged from $18 to $20 a month, or about P1,080 to P1,200 at an exchange rate of P60 to the dollar.
“There's so much to choose from that you can try to just search on the web for AI providers or AI models and they'll give you a list,” he told a news conference on Aug. 19 for G Summit Cebu 2026, the Cebu leg of Globe Business’ annual flagship business and technology summit.
The summit brings together business leaders, technology experts and industry partners to discuss digital transformation and emerging technologies.
Estrella cited the case of a small restaurant owner who subscribed to an AI model for $20 a month and used it to build a workflow. The restaurateur then began experimenting with the model and gradually expanded its use in the business.
Experiment
Estrella pointed out that MSMEs could initially experiment with AI tools to determine whether they suited their business needs, noting that subscriptions could easily be canceled after a month or two if they proved unnecessary, or scaled up if they delivered value.
While AI can help automate systems and processes, it does not replace sound judgment and common sense, he stressed.
“You can only apply it if your process is fixed. If your process is broken, AI accelerates the broken process. It doesn't fix it. You have to adjust the process and fix it to make it work. Because if the process is broken, you just apply it, then the process is still broken,” Estrella said.
Estrella stressed that business owners remained the best judges of what their businesses needed, with the challenge being how far they were willing to go in adopting AI. For Globe Business, Estrella said they plan to bring more bundled packages that target MSMEs next year.
“We do that now a lot for a large enterprise, but I think it's time to also kind of bundle certain things applicable for the MSMEs,” he added.
Globe Business is the enterprise arm of Globe that specializes in driving digital transformation for businesses through enhanced connectivity offerings and expanded services such as cloud, cybersecurity and enterprise application.
Strong 2025 performance
According to KD Dizon, chief marketing officer of Globe Telecom, the country’s small businesses did well last year despite some economic headwinds.
Based on CPA Australia’s 2025-2026 Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey, 79 percent of small businesses surveyed reported growth in 2025, the highest proportion since 2019.
CPA Australia is one of the world's largest professional accounting organizations, representing accountants and finance professionals in Australia and internationally.
The outlook for this year is even more upbeat, with 89 percent of Philippine small businesses expecting to grow in 2026—the highest growth expectation among the 11 markets covered by the survey.
“That is the highest growth expectation among the countries that were surveyed, putting us ahead of even Singapore and Australia. So, the Filipino remains undefeated,” said Dizon in her talk during the recent G Summit here.
She stressed that the optimism of businesses has broader implications for the economy, noting that the business sector employs about 29 million Filipinos, accounting for more than 60 percent of the country's workforce.
The sector also contributes about 45 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), underscoring the significant role businesses play in sustaining economic activity and employment.
“When 89 percent of you say that you are going to grow, you are deciding what happens to three out of every five jobs,” Dizon said, highlighting the influence and responsibility businesses carry in driving the Philippine economy.
Financing constraints
Still, 64 percent of small businesses reported that financing remained tight, while many companies continued to grapple with disconnected data systems and growing cybersecurity threats despite years of investment in digitalization.
Dizon said businesses have already poured significant capital and resources into migrating to the cloud, automating core operations and establishing digital touchpoints for customers. However, inefficiencies remain, highlighting the need to move beyond simply adopting digital technologies toward intelligent transformation, where systems, data and people are integrated to work together across the organization.
But she stressed that businesses must move beyond digital transformation toward what she called “intelligent transformation” by bringing together internal data, systems, and people into one cohesive engine.
She identified four major components of this approach: network infrastructure and connectivity; Application Programing Interface (API); cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.
Connectivity provides the foundation while the APIs allow different systems to communicate. Cybersecurity protects the ecosystem. AI interprets data and turns it into predictive or real-time action. —Ed: Corrie S. Narisma
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