I think the Cebu property market (being the epicenter of all this) is going to be in really big trouble. Most of the locals in that industry just don't get it yet.

Go check out r/BPOinPH and they'll tell you the same thing. What AI hits hardest are mostly entry-level customer service jobs, but the BPO industry as a whole is still solid. Every company that tried switching to AI has either gone back to human support or ended up with worse customer service. Ask the workers and they'll tell you the same. Experienced agents aren't being replaced; they're working AI into their workflow now. Try calling customer support yourself and ask whether you really want to talk to an AI agent. We've been down this road before, especially back in 2022. And BPO isn't all customer service anyway. Freelance artists working remotely are already part of the BPO industry. Architects and engineers here help out foreign firms. IT services, healthcare consulting, financial advisors, and sales still rely entirely on people. People definitely need to upskill, but an entire industry wiped out? Nope. It'll just get leaner.

In my view, AI is going to do huge damage to the Philippine economy. Over the coming decades it's not just BPO-related jobs (call centers etc.) that will disappear, but also online sex work and long-distance relationships. Lonely foreigners looking for sexual stimulation will turn to AI porn instead of subscribing to some Filipina's OnlyFans. Those looking for companionship are more likely to stick with an AI girlfriend that tells them what they want to hear than a woman who treats them like an ATM. Combine that drop in income with an economy that's already so weak the government has to sell US dollar and euro bonds just to keep the lights on, and you can see the future looks grim. Worst of all, with Filipino women becoming westernized, birth and fertility rates are in free fall and already far below replacement level. In other words, that collapsing future economy wouldn't even have enough taxpayers to recover on its own. Unless Filipinos discover some massive oil or gas fields in their waters or a huge rare earth deposit on their land, the Philippines will see an economic downturn unlike anything in its history. PS: to be clear, this is just MY opinion

Anyone who thinks AI won't hit the Philippines and every other country hard is in denial. Hope isn't a strategy, and neither is denial.

I'm an American software engineer. I've been hearing for years that AI will replace all software engineers. I use AI all day, every day at work, and my income has literally more than doubled since 2022. I now make what used to be possible only for senior engineers with 20 years of experience at a FAANG company. I personally know several others who pivoted like I did and are now hyper-productive. So my answer to your doomsday scenario is: *yawn. I'm going to go work some more.

Your question rests on this assumption: "if AI replaces all those jobs and the emerging middle class collapses"... That's a pretty dark scenario, and while it's not impossible at all, I don't think it'll happen overnight. During and after the Industrial Revolution, you could find plenty of farmers plowing with a donkey right next to another farmer using a steam engine. As AI takes those jobs, some workers will switch to other work, some BPO jobs will stay with humans, and landlords will rethink their rents and properties as demand cools further. There won't be a Hiroshima-style moment of detonation where the industry vanishes and the rental and sales markets suddenly crater. In fact, even if BGC and IT Park hypothetically turned into slums, some landlords would still hold their sale prices and rents absurdly high, because humans do weird human things. And by the time rents and prices finally drop, those areas might not be desirable anymore. All speculation, of course. Ask AI what it thinks.