MANILA — Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), the infrastructure for customer engagement in the AI era, today released new local data from its 2026 Customer Insights Series. The research revealed that AI agents now handle nearly half (46%) of all customer service conversations in the Philippines, with business leaders projecting that figure to reach 61% by 2027. However, as adoption accelerates, consumers are becoming increasingly frustrated with AI amnesia – the phenomenon where AI forgets prior context or interaction history, forcing users to repeatedly explain themselves.
When asked to choose, 46% of Filipino consumers say an AI that responds quickly but lacks personal context is more frustrating than a slow AI that holds full interaction history (16%), underscoring that speed alone is not the fix.
AI amnesia in customer experience
AI amnesia presents a growing vulnerability for brands operating in a high-trust market — over eight in 10 Filipino consumers (81%) trust brands to use their personal data responsibly and with their best interests in mind.
Brands, for their part, report higher confidence in how well their AI remembers their customers, with 74% saying their AI agents recognize a returning customer and access their history. However, 73% of consumers report having to repeat information during automated interactions, an experience that creates frustration and tests their patience with the brand.
Consequently, when context is missing, nearly three in four local consumers (73%) stop using an AI agent mid-interaction. While most escalate to a human representative or abandon the inquiry entirely, 4% end their relationship with the brand altogether.
A high-trust market that increasingly welcomes AI
Despite these hurdles, consumer appetite for AI remains strong. Nearly eight in 10 Filipino consumers (79%) agree that customer service AI bots have improved over the past year, a judgment backed by firsthand experience, with 81% having already interacted with an AI service tool, according to Twilio’s 2026 Digital Patience study.
That familiarity is increasingly translating into a willingness to allow AI to handle routine, everyday tasks, such as scheduling an appointment (89%), making dinner reservations or processing returns (87%), and selecting concert seats (85%).
However, consumer willingness to delegate drops sharply when transactions involve financial, health, or privacy risks. Trust narrows significantly when AI is asked to process payments (61%), initiate loan applications (58%), or handle medical inquiries (54%).
Bridging this trust gap is vital as businesses plan to expand AI’s role in customer service. While 94% of Philippine organizations increased their digital customer engagement budgets over the past year and 80% maintain an optimistic outlook on AI investments, capital expenditure alone cannot buy consumer confidence. Brands will need to meet consumer demand for contextual continuity, transparency, and effective issue resolution.
Transparency as a clear and consistent expectation
Speed alone has never been a sole metric in the Philippine market. Even as 61% of consumers acknowledge that AI saves them time, transparency is the clearer, more urgent requirement for Filipino consumers when interacting with AI. Over seven in 10 (73%) consumers explicitly demand that brands disclose upfront that they are speaking with AI. Currently, only 26% of Philippine organizations disclose AI identity from the start of every interaction.
Crucially, transparency also requires keeping human assistance within reach. The ability to seamlessly switch to a human representative ranks as the single most important factor for consumer comfort (29%), alongside a preference for human oversight on major decisions (26%). Brands in the Philippines have taken note, with a majority prioritizing human-assisted workflows over total automation. 80% of organizations have implemented or piloted human-in-the-loop systems where agents monitor or intervene in live AI chats, with 51% confirming this as standard operational practice.
“The Philippines has always been a remarkably high-trust market and increasingly, that trust is extending to AI agents. While eliminating hold times has been a real win for customers requiring speed, fast responses cannot sustain customer loyalty if AI agents—now handling almost half of customer conversations—exhibit amnesia,” said Nicholas Kontopoulos, vice president of marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan. “Filipino consumers have trusted brands with their data long before AI agents entered the loop. As brands deploy AI to take on more conversations, it needs to carry the same qualities consumers already trust brands for, such as warmth, empathy, memory, and the ability to delight. Brands need to ensure AI deepens that trust, not spend it down.”
Explore the 2026 Customer Insights Series here.
