Inside Manila's Robot Control Center
In a modern office building in Manila's financial district, 60 young tech professionals monitor and control AI-powered robots that are restocking shelves in Japanese convenience stores thousands of miles away.
When a robot accidentally drops a can, operators don virtual reality headsets and use joysticks to manually recover the item. This hybrid approach combines autonomous operation with human oversight when needed.
The Technology Behind the Operation
These AI robots are designed by Tokyo-based startup Telexistence and run on Nvidia and Microsoft platforms. Since 2022, the company has deployed these machines in over 300 FamilyMart and Lawson stores across Tokyo, with plans to expand to 7-Eleven locations soon.
Addressing Japan's Labor Crisis
Japan faces a severe worker shortage due to its aging population and restrictive immigration policies. Telexistence's solution allows physical labor to be offshored to the Philippines, where young, tech-savvy workers operate the robots remotely.
"It's hard to find workers to do stacking in Japan," explained Juan Paolo Villonco, founder of Astro Robotics, which employs the tele-operators. "If you get one who's willing to do it, it's going to be very expensive. The minimum wage is quite expensive."
The Daily Life of a Robot Pilot
Each tele-operator, called a "pilot," monitors approximately 50 robots simultaneously. The robots operate autonomously about 96% of the time, but when they encounter problems—which happens about 4% of the time—human intervention becomes necessary.
Engineering and computer science graduates fill these roles, earning between $250 and $315 per month—comparable to call center wages in the Philippines. Their responsibilities include monitoring robot performance and preparing detailed reports.
The Human Cost of Automation
Workers face significant challenges, including cybersickness from extended VR headset use. During a typical eight-hour shift, operators take control of robots about 50 times, with each intervention lasting up to five minutes.
"It can be really tough," said Rowel Atienza, a machine learning professor at the University of the Philippines. "Imagine teleporting, the sudden disconnect from your surroundings, elevation—everything can cause accidents."
Training the Next Generation of Autonomous Systems
The tele-operators' movements are helping train fully autonomous robots. Telexistence has gathered "a large amount of unique 'embodied' teleoperation data and know-how" from its human workers, which it's providing to San Francisco-based startup Physical Intelligence to develop foundation AI models.
This partnership aims to give robots human-like physical intelligence—the ability to perform basic physical tasks like grasping and manipulating objects.
The Broader Impact on the Tech Industry
The Philippines is experiencing an AI and automation boom in IT service work, even as layoffs affect similar workers in wealthier countries. Filipino tech professionals are increasingly working with industrial robots, autonomous vehicles, and AI agents.
About one-third of computer science students at the University of the Philippines are employed by foreign firms, according to Professor Atienza.
The Economic Reality for Filipino Tech Workers
While these roles require more technical skills than traditional outsourcing jobs, workers often face familiar trade-offs. They're typically employed as contractors without healthcare or retirement benefits, earning significantly less than their counterparts in developed nations.
An engineering graduate working for a U.S. consulting firm through an outsourcing company earns $874 per month—about 30% less than the American minimum wage for full-time work.
The Future of Work: Human-Machine Collaboration
Lionel Robert, a robotics professor at the University of Michigan, believes full automation may never be completely achieved. "The future is a robotic-AI-automation-human hybrid workforce," he said. "Are robots and AI gonna take all the jobs from humans? The answer is no—because humans are pretty useful."
This hybrid future is already visible globally. A World Economic Forum survey of 1,000 employers found they expect the share of human-only jobs to decline rapidly, replaced by jobs done together with—or solely by—machines.
Local vs. Global Opportunities
Despite lower pay, Filipino workers are eager to work for foreign companies because they still offer better compensation than local firms. Marc Escobar, CTO of Philippines-based startup Sofi AI, turned down a $1,500 monthly offer from Anthropic to support local tech development.
"I want to show that we can also upscale with AI in the Philippines," Escobar said, despite his company paying about half what foreign firms offer.
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