CLIENTS found AI cheaper than a freelance writer, and Ethel de Borja’s book projects dried up. After 15 years in IT, she shifted to remote work. Through The Urban Writers, she completed two 30,000-word titles a month for P35,000 each on personal finance, business and technology. “By May 2025, I no longer have bookwriting projects,” she said. “Claude was very popular for long prose.”

Her experience reflects a wider shift. Roughly 1.7 million Filipino gig workers were engaged through online platforms or mobile applications, according to PSA-linked analysis of the 2021 Labor Force Survey. The International Monetary Fund estimates that 14 percent of Philippine jobs are at risk of displacement by artificial intelligence (AI).

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