MANILA, Philippines – While there are fears that artificial intelligence (AI) could disrupt the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines, AI-powered software Arbolo is hoping it can make a mark in the call center capital of the world.

Arbolo is used to train workers and aims to help them with daily tasks. Martin Tan, chief executive officer of Arbolo, explained that Arbolo is essentially a virtual coach for each call agent — the software has call simulations and provides agents with feedback by processing data from every transaction.

“We think of ourselves as the crucial first step in helping the Philippines transition to those types of technologies, to that future of work where our BPO workers become managers of AI agents,” Tan told Rappler in an interview.

The company was founded in January 2024, while the software was developed by Tan’s co-founder, Arbolo chief technology officer Nicolás Rivas, in Chile early this year. The company landed its first client in June.

Tan said they currently have 200 BPO agents using Arbolo from 10 Latin America-based clients, including a large telecommunications company and an insurance provider.

How Arbolo works

Arbolo’s AI-powered roleplay simulations depends primarily on the client’s own history of calls with customers.

“We take a sample of the calls from the client and using that data, we can create lifelike simulations of callers and scenarios they’ve encountered in the past,” Tan said.

This means that Arbolo can create simulations for callers with debt inquiries and also try to mimic questions and situations related to fraud cases if the client handles financial services.

“If they tend to encounter really angry people or some of them are patient, some of them are makulit (annoying), then we are able to have those personas reflected in the roleplays we do,” Tan said.

Part of an agent’s training includes roleplaying, typically with another BPO personnel pretending to be a caller. This helps them figure out how to respond to different scenarios when dealing with customers.

Through Arbolo’s software, AI would act as a customer reaching out to the BPO agent via chat. Trainees can respond either by voice message.

Tan said BPOs tend to only have few coaches, who would juggle multiple trainees for one-on-one training. Arbolo makes this part easier, with its clients noting that BPO personnel initially tasked to coach and train new employees are now more productive doing other administrative tasks.

“If you walk into a BPO, they have these training rooms where they have what you call a coach or a trainer, and then 20 new hires in the waiting room, waiting for their turn to do a one-on-one,” Tan said. “What they can now do is everyone can do a roleplay at the same time using our tool.”

Tan noted that their software helped clients cut down their training time by around 80%, effectively onboarding more people faster.

Aside from training, Arbolo can also be used by companies to figure out how else each of their agents can improve.

“We diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of a call center agent, and then we provide a solution to either enhance the skills that are most useful in getting the results that the company needs or [address] their weaknesses to get them to a level of competence needed for them to be deployed on a certain project,” Tan said.

The software is subscription-based — charging $25 monthly for each agent. This is because Arbolo has personalized diagnosis and training features that caters to each user.

“Part and parcel with that diagnosis is a tracking of how an agent performs across a dozen different metrics over time,” he told Rappler. “So [through Arbolo], an agent can see how he improves on certain skills overtime and he can also see how he compares to his peers.”

The software also develops a feedback summary based on the calls the agent has taken, which could then be used by the company for employee reviews.

Promising Philippine market

The company, currently based in Chile, is hoping to set up shop in the Philippines. Tan is the only one among the team of six that is currently in Manila to get word out on Arbolo.

“Everyone’s in Santiago, Chile. The way we’re organized now is the corporate headquarters will be in the Philippines,” Tan said.

“[This] gives us close on-the-ground access to what some say is the call center capital of the world… and then we have our innovation hub in Santiago, Chile, which is the most developed country in Latin America,” he added.

Arbolo has a chance to gain ground in the Philippines. The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBAP) has noted that at least 67% of their member companies — 60 local and international firms with over 800,000 employees — are in one way or another using AI in their daily operations. This includes getting software for customer support, data entry and processing, quality assurance, business services, workforce management, and sales and marketing.

According to an IBAP survey, only 8% of the companies that have been using AI reported reducing staff, while another 13% reported workforce growth.

In the past few months, Tan has met up with a couple of potential clients, which he declined to disclose on record. However, he said their responses to the potential of Arbolo in their respective operations has so far been positive.

Arbolo will be working on getting its compliance certifications in the coming months to officially kickstart operations in the Philippines. – Rappler.com