The fifth GCash iGnite Innovation Summit put two subjects on the same stage on July 24: artificial intelligence (AI) as a working business tool, and cybersecurity as the thing that keeps it trustworthy. The full-day event ran from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm at SMX Convention Center Aura in Taguig, according to the venue's own event listing, and drew roughly 3,000 people from government, fintech, and global technology companies, GizGuide reported.
iGnite is run by GCash and its operator, Mynt, and this was the fifth edition. The theme was less about launching a product and more about a question Philippine businesses are already facing: how do you use AI without handing fraudsters a bigger opening?
What GCash staged at iGnite 2026
The summit was opened by Mynt president and CEO Martha Sazon and Mynt chief technology and operations officer Pebbles Sy. Co-presenters included Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, Huawei, and AWS, alongside two government agencies, the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), per GizGuide's account of the day.
Beyond the main keynotes, the program included a hackathon, regulatory discussions, roundtables for chief information officers (CIOs) across the Ayala group, and hands-on activity areas.
"Innovation is not just about adopting the latest technology. It is about bringing the right people together to solve real problems," Sy said in the company's statement on the event. She framed iGnite as a venue where "global industry leaders, regulators, and innovators can share ideas, build partnerships, and develop practical solutions that strengthen digital trust."
The four content tracks that shaped the program
GCash split the sessions into four tracks:
- The AI Business Engine - how AI and automation are changing financial services.
- Intelligent Trust - cybersecurity, system resilience, and keeping customer trust as more services move online.
- The Agentic Enterprise - how agentic AI (software that can carry out multi-step tasks on its own, instead of only answering questions) is reshaping workplaces, business processes, and the skills staff need.
- Regulatory Tech Revolution - how AI is being used for fraud prevention, governance, and safer digital financial services.
The split is telling. Two of the four tracks are about controlling risk rather than chasing new features, which matches where the pressure sits for a payments company handling everyday transactions.
GSafe: the first anti-fraud summit GCash has run itself
The most concrete new element was GSafe: The Vanguards of Trust, described as the first cybersecurity and anti-fraud summit GCash has organized on its own. It sits under the company's existing #GSafeTayo campaign. Sessions covered emerging threats, how technology can answer AI-driven attacks, and how public and private bodies can work together.
"Cybersecurity is the foundation of digital trust. As more Filipinos embrace digital financial services, protecting their accounts, transactions, and personal information remains our highest priority," said Miguel Geronilla, GCash chief information security officer.
That is a claim worth checking against something measurable, and there is a recent number. Four days before the summit, GCash said it had blocked more than 6,700 fraudulent merchants running QRPh-related scams, announcing the takedown on the Mynt newsroom on July 20. Geronilla, the same executive quoted at iGnite, said there that "scammers are constantly evolving their tactics alongside digital payments."
The local risk is not hypothetical. A recent bolttech study found that most Filipinos feel safe online even though 57% have been hit by cybercrime - a confidence gap that scam operators rely on.
Why only 14.9% of Philippine firms use AI tools
GCash's statement leaned on one statistic to explain why the summit mattered: research from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) finding that only 14.9% of Philippine firms use AI tools.
That figure checks out at the source. PIDS published it on September 11, 2025, in a release on the study Readiness for AI Adoption of Philippine Business and Industry, written by senior research fellow Francis Mark A. Quimba with Neil Irwin S. Moreno and Alliah Mae C. Salazar. The PIDS release sets that number against much higher basic digital access:
| Measure | Share of Philippine firms |
|---|
| Own computers | 90.8% |
| Have internet access | 81% |
| Use AI tools | 14.9% |
| Overall AI adoption across industries | 3% |
| ICT and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors | 6% to 7% |
| Agriculture | 1.5% |
| Aware of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies | about 1 in 5 |
One caveat the summit copy left out: the same PIDS release carries both a 14.9% "use AI tools" figure and a lower 3% "overall AI adoption" figure, and it does not spell out which survey each one comes from. They are clearly different measures, so the 14.9% headline should be read as the more generous of the two.
PIDS also found adoption clustered in large firms in Metro Manila and CALABARZON, with micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and rural areas furthest behind. The barriers it lists are weak digital infrastructure, low awareness, skills shortages, and limited funding - none of which a one-day conference fixes.
Bam Aquino's keynote: use the data, or step aside
Senator Bam Aquino, who chairs the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, gave the keynote and pushed the argument toward policy.
"My position is, you cannot be a competent leader, a competent business, or a competent government if you don't utilize the tools that are already available right now," he said.
He argued that data from platforms such as GCash should feed lawmaking: "That data is so important in crafting a policy framework that can truly uplift Filipinos' lives." He put it more bluntly as well, saying that ignoring available data "won't just be stupid. It will become criminal."
Aquino also made a point of GCash's origins, saying in Filipino that people should not forget the service was made, hatched, and nurtured in the Philippines, and that its heart remains Filipino even as it has expanded abroad.
What the coverage does and does not tell us
A note on the reporting basis, because it shapes how much weight to put on the above. Almost everything published about iGnite 2026 traces to a single GCash press release, which appeared with near-identical wording across several outlets between July 28 and 29 - including as a clearly labelled sponsored item on Philstar.com. As of publication, the release does not appear on Mynt's own newsroom, and independent reporting from the venue has been limited, with GizGuide's recap the main exception. The attendance figure, venue, and co-presenter list come from that recap and the venue listing rather than from GCash.
So treat the track descriptions and quotes as the company's own framing. The verifiable, third-party parts are the date and venue, the rough attendance, and the PIDS research.
What it changes for GCash users in the Philippines
Nothing at the summit changes your app today. No new consumer feature, fee, or price was announced, and there was no timeline attached to the AI work discussed on stage. For users, the practical output is enforcement that has already happened, such as the 6,700-plus fraudulent merchants blocked in July, rather than anything unveiled at SMX Aura.
The timing is worth noting, though. On July 10, Mynt announced it had filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), describing itself as "the first and only $5 billion unicorn in the Philippines" - around ₱306 billion at the July 31 rate of about ₱61.29 to the dollar. Mynt's own notice stresses that any initial public offering "if pursued" still depends on market conditions and regulatory approvals, so this is not a confirmed listing. But a company heading in that direction has an obvious reason to be publicly loud about governance, fraud controls, and responsible AI.
The wider policy backdrop is moving too: Philippine lawmakers are weighing an open finance bill that would let e-wallet and utility payments build a credit record, which would put far more consumer data in play across fintech platforms. Events like iGnite and the earlier Manila Tech Summit 2026 are where that groundwork gets argued out in public.
