iGnite: GCash Innovation Summit 2024 puts the spotlight on AI in the fintech space

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The world is once again at a turning point in technological advancements as it is seeing artificial intelligence (AI) redefining the game across various industries. According to a study, around 86% of Filipino knowledge workers are already using AI at work to boost efficiency and productivity.

“We either ride the wave or get left behind,” said Martha Sazon, GCash president and CEO on the critical role of AI in financial technology (fintech), during the recently concluded iGnite: GCash Innovation Summit 2024, a premier platform that takes place annually with an aim to empower businesses and individuals to leverage on digital innovations in the fintech space for sustainable growth in the digital economy.

This year’s theme was dubbed “AI-Volution” to signal the valuable role of AI in financial services to drive user experiences and operational efficiency. At GCash, several of its services are already powered by AI including GScore, the most expensive and most sophisticated credit scoring in the Philippines. It is also applied in GCash’s “double safe,” offering face ID and double safe verification embedded inside the app.

The flagship event brought together industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers led by Department of Education Secretary Sonny Angara who hailed GCash for using AI in paving the way for the future of fintech in the country, adding that the DepEd is also looking into the many possible applications of AI in uplifting the educational system in the country.  “The summit will be talking about personalization, and that is also the dream in education – a personalized education,” he added.

Also helping to set the tone for this year’s summit was GCash chief technology and operations officer Pebbles Sy with her talk “Artificial Intelligence: The Biggest Disruptor” and how GCash is fast becoming an AI native.

Further sharing their insights on AI were Unni Pillai, Amazon Web Services Philippines head of technology Unni Pillai who discussed “Unlocking Value for Customers: Hyper-Personalizing Customer Journeys” and Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International chief solutions architect Garry Sien with his talk, “Future of Work – When Artificial Intelligence Becomes Genuine.”

Aside from the immersive talks, the whole-day summit also included various activities such as peer-to-peer roundtable discussions, hands-on labs and workshops, mentorship, hackathon initiatives and more.

The iGnite: GCash Innovation Summit 2024 was made possible by the support of leading sponsors including Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Globe Business, Collabera Digital, Data Robot, YugabyteDB, TechMahindra, Indra, Palo Alto Networks, UIPath, Confluent, Kong, Pascal Software, Crowdstrike, Appdome, SGV, Trellix, Tiger Analytics, and MongoDB.