PLDT scales AI-driven customer service with UiPath platform
PLDT, the Philippines' largest telecommunications provider, has deployed UiPath business orchestration and agentic AI across three major initiatives to handle surging demand from 5G adoption, broadband expansion, and satellite connectivity growth. The rollout has already produced measurable results: a conversational agent saving 30,000 hours annually, a digital assistant cutting customer response times by 80%, and a risk intelligence agent reducing manual effort by up to 99%.
The telecom provider integrated UiPath's platform to streamline how employees retrieve and act on enterprise knowledge. The goal was straightforward: remove service restoration bottlenecks and give teams faster access to accurate information during customer interactions.
Three AI agents tackle specific operational bottlenecks
KAI (Knowledge, Automation, Intelligence) handles instant knowledge retrieval. What previously took up to five days of manual research now produces contextual responses in one to three seconds. The agentic AI assistant draws exclusively from approved sources, creating roughly 12 FTE-equivalent annual productivity capacity and eliminating between 25,000 and 30,000 hours of manual effort per year. PLDT reports a 99% faster response rate without adding headcount.
Ellie (Enablement and Intelligence Engine) is an internal AI-powered digital assistant that turns fragmented knowledge and workflows into action. It reduces manual effort by 25-35%, saves an estimated 18,000 to 25,000 hours annually, and delivers up to 80% faster customer response times. PLDT Enterprise teams use Ellie to shift focus from information gathering to customer growth and innovation.
ERICA (Enterprise Risk Intelligence Companion Agent) was deployed in February 2026 to manage the increasing depth of annual risk reviews. The agent automatically synthesizes data, scores risks, and recommends treatments. Complex evaluations that once took two to ten days now complete in five minutes to one day-a 97% to 99% reduction in manual effort.
Leadership on why the shift matters
"Customer expectations continue to rise alongside the growth of 5G, broadband, and digital services," said Karl Crowther, Area Vice President for Middle East & Africa and South Asia at UiPath. "This has created increased pressure on communications providers to deliver faster, more seamless support experiences."
Gilbert Gaw, PLDT and Smart First Vice President and Head of IT and Transformation Office, said the partnership "enables us to bring greater intelligence into our operations, streamline processes, unlock the value of enterprise knowledge, and deliver more consistent and personalized customer experiences."
For customer support teams, these deployments reflect a broader shift in how AI agents and automation are being applied to real service workflows-not as experimental pilots, but as production systems with quantified time savings and response improvements.
Why this matters for customer support professionals
PLDT's numbers offer a concrete benchmark for what agentic AI can deliver in a support environment. The 80% faster response time from Ellie and the one-to-three-second knowledge retrieval from KAI show that the biggest gains come from removing the research burden that slows agents down. If you work in customer support, the takeaway is specific: AI assistants that ground responses in approved knowledge sources can cut resolution time dramatically while keeping answers accurate. The technology is no longer theoretical-PLDT has already banked the hours.
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