The future of work will not be built alone. In this exclusive interview we had with two leaders from two, distinct industries, we learned that innovation is not only about technology, but finding ways to build smarter services together.
Micka Cardoso, CEO and co-founder of CloudCfo, a finance and accounting solutions provider, and Itamar Gero, founder of Truelogic, a Manila-based digital marketing agency, work in different fields.
However, their insights met on one ground: AI will not only change how people work, but also change how people work together.
“Together, I think we’re working on—it’s a race to who’s going to survive this disruption, this change in business model,” Gero said.
The disruption is already here
Early in the conversation, Gero noted that AI’s rise is happening fast and without much room for delay.
“There are the companies that are ramping up to use and deliver AI products, and they’re the companies that wouldn’t exist in five years,” the Truelogic founder said.
Cardoso echoed this, calling the shift unavoidable as there will be “winners and losers.”
“I think that’s always been the case. You’re really looking at something like this but on steroids… probably much more dramatic impacts in a timeframe that maybe businesses are not used to,” he said.
For both companies, AI is not just about productivity; it is about redefining roles and operations.
“Since we’ve introduced AI into our company, what we’ve learned is the hardest part… is how do you build your entire value chain and your entire process around this new capability?” Cardoso asked.
Meanwhile, Gero fframed it as a systems shift, not just a tech upgrade.
“We were trying to use electricity the same way we were producing for the longest time and we hadn’t readapted the entire value chain,” He said.
“I think we’re going for something very similar here.”
Digital readiness still lagging
While AI is moving quickly, both leaders agreed that many Philippine businesses are uprepared to adopt it meaningfully. The root issue, they said, is not the cost of tools but internal readiness.
Cardoso said that there are affordable technology that have been around for more than two decades, however, these are not “necessarily used” in the Philippines.
Adding to that, Gero pointed to deeper challenges within organizations. He cited a survey indicating “low AI awareness among SMEs [was] 14.9% adoption rate.”
According to a 2024 study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 14.9 percent of firms had adopted AI technologies as of 2021, with adoption concentrated in larger firms in urban areas.
The same study also noted that AI awareness was similarly low, with only about 20 percent of surveyed firms aware of the technology, underscoring the gap Gero referred to.
However, even with accessible tools, Cardoso said that training is essential.
“We built our own kind of training capabilities. We call it the CloudCFO Academy and we train people. Any new technology we adopt, we have to build our own training program to adapt people very quickly to it,” He shared.
He added, “If your people become irrelevant, you become irrelevant as a company.”
Adapting across functions and industries
At the heart of the discussion was how AI is forcing new levels of collaboration. Departments and industries that once operated separately are now interdependent.
Earlier, Micka said that everyone is thinking about their own “swimming lane,” spending most of the time looking at finance and accounting processes. Yet, people often overlook looking for an approach that addresses all parts of the business to work together in creating value.
Moreover, Gero said marketing is also evolving to support AI-led transformation.
“What we need to put front and center is their new capabilities, why they differ from your usual accounting provider. The way people were searching before for solutions, for answers, have changed,” He said.
While neither Gero nor Cardoso claimed to know what the next five years will look like, both pointed to the same message: preparation cannot wait.
“There’ll be companies that integrated and used and leveraged on any AI and any automation and AI tools, and those who just might not survive,” Gero said.
CloudCFO supports Philippine-based startups and SMEs with outsourced finance services, covering accounting, bookkeeping, tax compliance, and virtual CFO functions.
Meanwhile, Truelogic is one of the country’s long-running digital marketing agencies, providing services such as SEO, paid media, and content development for both local and international businesses.
