MANILA — Artificial intelligence is making startups faster and cheaper to build, but according to Founder Institute co-founder and Chief Investment Officer Jonathan Greechan, that also creates a new problem: how do you build something that is actually different?
AI adoption is already widespread. Stanford’s AI Index 2026 found that 88 percent of surveyed organizations used AI in at least one business function in 2025, while 79 percent regularly used generative AI. At the same time, newly funded AI companies jumped 71 percent.
The Philippine digital economy is also expanding. The Philippine Statistics Authority valued it at P2.74 trillion in 2025, equivalent to 9.8 percent of GDP, with 10.39 million people employed in the digital economy.
For Greechan, the answer is not simply having better technology. Startups need a defensible moat, whether that comes from proprietary data, deep industry knowledge, or becoming so embedded in a customer's workflow that replacing the company becomes difficult.
“Your data can be a moat,” he said, while stressing that a business can also build defensibility by becoming indispensable to the way customers operate.
That challenge is becoming more urgent as AI lowers the barriers to launching a company. Greechan said tools developed over the past eight months have compressed parts of the startup-building process that once took months into work that can potentially be done in days.
But faster execution does not guarantee demand.
AI, he said, can help founders build and measure, but “you cannot outsource the learning to the AI.” Founders still have to talk to customers, understand the problem, and determine whether anyone actually wants what they are building.
The next major investment frontier may also move beyond software.
Greechan sees robotics and physical AI as a potential next wave as software intelligence increasingly interacts with the physical world. Industry data shows the scale of that shift: the International Federation of Robotics says more than 600,000 industrial robots were installed globally in 2025, bringing the worldwide operational stock to about 5 million.
Asia remains the center of that growth, with China accounting for 354,000 installations in 2025, or 59 percent of global deployments.
The capital is following the technology. In September, AMD announced an $8.2-billion all-stock deal to acquire AI startup World Labs, whose technology focuses on spatial intelligence and applications including robotics.
For Philippine founders, however, Greechan cautions against trying to look global before proving the business at home.
His advice: start with a narrow niche, establish traction, develop a repeatable playbook, then expand across the Philippines and into Asia. Move to markets such as Singapore, London or Silicon Valley when customers or investors create a real reason to do so, rather than assuming the location itself will create demand.
The opportunity is significant. The latest Google, Temasek, and Bain e-Conomy SEA report projects Southeast Asia's digital economy to surpass $300 billion in GMV in 2025, while more than $2.3 billion had been invested in more than 680 AI startups during the period tracked by the report.