MANILA, Philippines, June 22, 2026 – The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and Google Cloud today announced an expanded, multi-year collaboration to embed enterprise AI into public service delivery in the Philippines. This collaboration focuses on making government services simpler, faster, and more secure for every Filipino.
Reflecting the strategic goals of DICT’s digital transformation roadmap, this collaboration advances the government’s Philippine Development Plan 2023–2028. By spearheading an “AI Agents for Public Sector” program and a cross-agency cyber defense alliance with Google Cloud alongside national connectivity developments, DICT is facilitating the Philippines’ transition into an AI-driven digital economy that is highly productive, cyber resilient, and inclusive.
Henry Rhoel Aguda, Secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, said: “Transformation is not defined by the adoption of sophisticated software tools alone, but by facilitating sustained systemic efficiency across public institutions and widespread access to e- government services. DICT is accelerating ‘Digital Bayanihan’ with partners like Google Cloud, where AI-driven systems, proactive cyber defense, and network infrastructure operate in tandem to provide every citizen with access to public services and high-speed connectivity within a secure online environment. We’re empowering our public servants with world-class AI tools and upskilling programs to help them remove bureaucratic friction, optimize public sector productivity, and deliver seamless, next-generation services that better serve and uplift our people in every community.”
Delivering frictionless citizen services while supercharging public sector productivity
Under their “AI Agents for Public Sector” program, DICT and Google Cloud have made Gemini Enterprise and Google Workspace available to public servants through the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management’s (PS-DBM) eMarketplace platform. Built on Google Cloud’s scalable and secure-by-design infrastructure, the eMarketplace was launched in the first quarter of 2026, serving as the Philippine government’s official e-commerce platform for transparent, streamlined, and cost-efficient procurement of enterprise-grade cloud and AI services.
Taking the lead on AI transformation in the public sector, DICT plans to use Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform to build, scale, govern, and optimize AI agents that aid citizens. This includes integrating grounded, context-aware AI agents into e-government platforms. This will allow Filipinos to simply speak or text in local languages to instantly clarify administrative procedures—such as setting up a new micro-business, checking community health center schedules, or navigating disaster relief assistance guidelines—replacing dense documentation with immediate, conversational support.
To enable rapid backend response to citizen needs, as a start, more than 50,000 public servants will be equipped with the Gemini Enterprise app, an advanced agentic ‘front door’ that empowers knowledge and frontline workers to discover, create, and use AI agents in a unified, fully governed environment.
For example, by inputting a query like “find all pending building permit applications for Barangay Central submitted in the past month” into the Gemini Enterprise app’s intuitive chat interface, a city building official can easily retrieve, synthesize, and act on relevant information across previously siloed data sources.
Through the Gemini Enterprise app, an economic analyst can mobilize an agentic taskforce via a prompt to “continuously analyze changing market prices for agricultural fertilizers, highlight supply chain anomalies, and draft a cited brief.” These AI agents will autonomously browse hundreds of verified web sources, review securely stored internal economic archives, build structural matrix charts of pricing trends, and output detailed reports and recommendations for human review and iteration, before automating communications to relevant stakeholders.
The value of these outputs is amplified through built-in connectors to Google Workspace and other third-party enterprise apps like Microsoft 365. Once the Gemini Enterprise app generates a research brief, a chart, or a policy synthesis, public servants can tap Workspace Intelligence to instantly convert those files into a collaborative team document in Google Docs, spin up a presentation deck in Google Slides for an inter-agency briefing, or coordinate immediate outreach via Gmail or Google Chat.
Programmatically, DICT plans to facilitate the use of Gemini Enterprise and Google Workspace by more than 200,000 public servants over the next 18 months, while continuing to track metrics like frequency of use, productivity gains, cost savings, and user satisfaction to quantify value and ensure tangible return on investment.
Reinforcing digital trust through Google Cloud Cybershield TM and multi-agency collaboration
To bolster the security of the Philippines’ digital landscape, the DICT Cybersecurity Bureau has established a cross-agency cyber defense alliance with support from Google Cloud.
At the National Security Operations Center (NSOC), the alliance has deployed Google Cloud Cybershield, which provides AI and intel-driven cyber defense at national scale with tailored and applied threat intelligence, Gemini-assisted security operations, and specialized Mandiant expertise. Security teams from 56 government agencies have been onboarded and trained to leverage the Cybershield solution, with a total of 90 agencies to be onboarded by end-June 2026.
This initiative enables centralized monitoring of security events across public sector entities and a more coordinated, streamlined response to evolving cyber threats targeting the government’s digital ecosystem and critical national infrastructure. This national defense architecture is also being used to secure the digital operations of the ongoing ASEAN Summits hosted by the Philippines from April to November 2026. By activating this multi-agency operational framework, public sector cybersecurity teams are equipped with the native capability to better detect, triage, investigate, and mitigate anomalies before they disrupt essential operations. For everyday citizens, this institutional-grade defense helps safeguard their personal data and interactions with e-government services, while enabling the Philippines' leap into the agentic AI era to be built on a foundation of digital trust.
Jennifer Ligones, Country Manager, Philippines, Google Cloud, said: “Our collaboration with DICT is designed to democratize the benefits of AI, converting global innovations into localized, conversational public services that reach and serve everyone, and where public servants are empowered to solve complex challenges in minutes rather than months. We’re building a future where best-in-class enterprise AI capabilities and high-speed data pipelines act as public utilities that unlock new job opportunities, protect critical national infrastructure, and help establish the Philippines as a leading digital economy in the Asia Pacific region.”
Supporting DICT’s national connectivity mandate in the AI era
The strategic collaboration between DICT and Google Cloud complements the integration of trans-Pacific subsea cable systems and terrestrial networks, and the deployment of air-laser wireless communications technology to bolster the Philippines digital infrastructure for the agentic AI era.
Aligned with DICT’s National Digital Connectivity Plan (NDCP), Google and the Pacific Connect initiative partners are extending the Taiwan-Philippines-U.S. (TPU) subsea cable system. With next-generation multicore fiber technology, the TPU cable is designed to handle the continuous, high-bandwidth bi-directional streams of data required by AI services including AI agents, while delivering higher total capacity at a more cost-effective rate per bit. This will translate to more affordable cloud connectivity that allows local organizations to tap advanced global AI services and scale their own AI applications into international markets, while unlocking more remote digital jobs for citizens.
Simultaneously, the Apricot subsea cable system serves as a resilient path that bypasses traditional areas of congestion, boosting the Philippines’ national network redundancy while enabling global AI services to remain accessible to local organizations and citizens.
By linking the TPU and Apricot cable systems with local commercial terrestrial networks and the DICT- managed Luzon Bypass Infrastructure (LBI) corridor, a robust ecosystem can be established to circumvent traditional domestic routing bottlenecks. As a result, DICT can channel its network resources toward more Free Wi-Fi for All sites in public schools, hospitals, community centers, and more, while underpinning the reliability and scale of e-government services.
