SaaScon PH '26: What 1,500 Filipino Business Leaders Said About AI

In May, close to 1,500 founders, enterprise leaders, and policymakers gathered at SaaScon PH '26 — hosted by Sprout Solutions under the theme "Enterprise 2030: The Rise of the AI-Native Business." The room included executives from Globe, AWS, Accenture, IBM, RCBC, Canva, and McKinsey.

The conversation had moved on from "should we use AI?" to something harder: how do you build a business around AI instead of just adding it on top of what you already do?

The Big Shift: From Experiments to Architecture

Saurish Basu of McKinsey put it plainly: companies that move ahead won't just automate isolated tasks — they'll redesign how work happens so that AI is part of the operations, governance, and decision-making itself.

For Sprout CEO Patrick Gentry, the change is structural: "Businesses are starting to redesign operating models around AI-native workflows and intelligent systems. But even as AI becomes more powerful, accountability still belongs to people."

What Is Agentic AI — and Why Should SMEs Care?

One of the conference's biggest themes was "agentic AI" — systems that can reason, coordinate multi-step tasks, and act with minimal human input. Not just a chatbot that answers questions, but an AI that handles a full customer support ticket from start to resolution.

Gartner projects that by end of 2026, 40% of enterprise apps will include task-specific AI agents. By 2028, 33% of enterprise software will have agentic AI built in — enabling 15% of routine business decisions to happen automatically.

The Honest Question for Small Operators

You don't need to "go AI-native" this week. But here's the question worth sitting with: are any of your workflows still entirely manual because you haven't tried automating them yet?

Jose Magsaysay Jr. of PAIBA said it well at the conference: "The advantage will belong to businesses that learn quickly, adapt fast, and combine technology with deeply human skills like leadership, judgment, and empathy."

Fast adaptation, not size, is the edge. A nimble 2-person operation can move faster than a 500-person enterprise — if the owner is paying attention.

Source: SaaScon PH '26 highlights the new rules of business in the age of AI | Inquirer Business