Filipino Workers Ready for AI, But Businesses Lag: ASUS Co-CEO

Walk into any coworking space in Bonifacio Global City or Makati City, and chances are you'll find a workforce increasingly embracing artificial intelligence (AI)—from marketers generating copy with ChatGPT and professionals transcribing meetings using AI-powered tools to executives drafting emails with Gemini. There is little doubt that individual Filipino workers have embraced AI at a remarkable pace. But look beyond individual browsers and into the country's largest enterprises, and a paradox is noticeable. According to industry data by Cisco, despite immense local enthusiasm, only 22% of enterprises in the Philippines are deemed "AI-ready." It's a gap that ASUS Co-CEO Samson Hu discussed in an exclusive interview with Philstar.com during the Philippine launch of the flagship ASUS ExpertBook Ultra, where he shared his perspective on what's holding enterprises back from scaling AI. Hu pointed to a growing gap between employee enthusiasm for AI and an organization's ability to support its widespread adoption. “The challenge is not lack of workforce talent or interest. The challenge is quite about the organizational readiness, how to move AI from the experimentation stage to really enterprise-wide discussion,” Hu told Philstar.com Hu, with a deep engineering background, views the enterprise AI gap as an organizational and structural bottleneck rather than a technological one. According to him, while an individual can integrate an AI tool into their personal routine in five minutes, an enterprise faces a radically different challenge. For a company to safely deploy AI at scale, it must navigate the friction of data governance, security policies, systemic risk and architectural integration. The disconnect, he argues, stems from a common misconception. Many executives still treat AI as a simple software acquisition, with conversations often revolving around AI models, subscriptions, and cloud platforms. As Hu expressed, many companies mistakenly assume AI adoption simply means purchasing new software licenses or giving employees access to AI tools. Instead, he believes the companies seeing the greatest returns are those that embed AI into the way work gets done. “The organizations that create the most value from AI are not those with the most tools. They are the organizations that integrate AI into how people actually work." This philosophy underpins ASUS' broader vision for enterprise AI. Rather than viewing AI as a technology initiative, the company believes businesses should treat it as a broader transformation initiative. For ASUS, successful enterprise AI adoption hinges on three essentials that move AI from an isolated IT experiment into a core driver of business transformation: the right tools, the right devices, and the right workflows. The first pillar, the right tools, refers to the AI applications and software that have fueled today's AI boom. These are the large language models, copilots and productivity platforms that excite business leaders for their ability to automate routine tasks, generate content, analyze data, and accelerate decision-making. But software alone isn't enough. Beyond software, Hu said businesses must also redesign workflows so AI becomes embedded into everyday operations rather than treated as a standalone productivity tool. For ASUS, that means integrating AI directly into the business laptop through features in its ASUS MyExpert Suite. AI ExpertMeet, for example, automatically transcribes and summarizes meetings; while Knowledge Hub, which enables AI-powered semantic search across enterprise files. AI ExpertPanel provides on-device AI capabilities—all designed to make AI a natural part of employees' daily workflows. The third pillar, the right devices, is perhaps the most overlooked. While discussions around enterprise AI often focus on cloud platforms and software subscriptions, Hu argues that the physical hardware powering AI experiences is just as critical. AI-ready devices equipped with dedicated processing capabilities enable organizations to run increasingly complex AI workloads more efficiently while supporting security, responsiveness, and on-device AI experiences. The need for devices built for the AI era is often overlooked in the enterprise AI conversation—one that tends to focus almost exclusively on software models and cloud platforms. Unlike traditional office applications, AI workloads require significantly greater computing power, performing billions of mathematical operations simultaneously. It is this gap that ASUS hopes to address with the launch of the new ASUS ExpertBook Ultra in the Philippines. The challenge is particularly evident in the local market. Cisco's 2024 AI Readiness Index found that only 22% of Philippine organizations have the graphics processing unit (GPU) capacity needed to support current and future AI workloads. At the same time, just 45% of enterprises have implemented key safeguards—including end-to-end encryption, security audits, continuous monitoring and rapid threat response—to adequately protect data used in AI systems. "AI is a full-stack transformation," Hu explained. In other words, investing in AI software while equipping employees with legacy hardware creates a bottleneck. Without devices capable of handling modern AI workloads, organizations are unable to fully unlock the performance, responsiveness and security that enterprise AI promises. This is where ASUS positions the new ASUS ExpertBook Ultra. Equipped with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) of up to 50 TOPS, the device is built for what Hu describes as Hybrid AI—an approach that distributes AI workloads between the cloud and the device itself. Processing AI tasks locally not only improves responsiveness and reduces reliance on cloud computing but also enables sensitive business information to remain on the device whenever possible. For enterprises handling confidential financial records, customer information, proprietary documents and internal communications, that distinction is increasingly important. Rather than transmitting sensitive data to public cloud AI services, businesses can process more workloads locally, strengthening privacy while reducing the risk of potentially catastrophic data leaks. Hu also said durability remains a key pillar of enterprise computing. Despite its ultra-slim design, the ASUS ExpertBook Ultra is engineered to withstand the demands of daily business use, helping organizations maintain productivity and business continuity through reliable, long-lasting devices For ASUS, enterprise devices equipped with dedicated AI processing capabilities, durability, and enterprise-grade security are no longer optional upgrades but necessities that enable organizations to balance productivity with stronger data protection. "What professionals need is a device that truly deserves to be their work machine—secure, durable, and ready for more advanced AI capabilities," he concluded.