PLDT gave 3 Cebu city halls a laptop, a phone and paid ChatGPT
Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu and Talisay joined PLDT and Smart's AI-in-a-Box program. Cebu City is one of four pioneer cities nationwide and the only one from the Visayas.
PLDT and Smart handed AI kits to three Metro Cebu city governments: Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City and Talisay City. Each kit is small and physical. A laptop, a smartphone, a Smart connectivity device, and paid access to AI tools including ChatGPT.
The program is called AI-in-a-Box. Cebu City is one of four pioneer cities in its mentorship track nationwide, and the only one from the Visayas. Staff from all three cities went through training first, so the equipment is supposed to arrive with people who know what to do with it. Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival welcomed the rollout in a Facebook statement.
We at PLDT and Smart believe that technology should help enhance the delivery of public service. Through the AI-in-a-Box Program, we affirm our commitment to assisting LGUs level up service delivery through a more citizen-focused, practical, secure, and innovative technology.
Why it matters
Most Filipinos do not meet the government on a national website. They meet it at a counter in a city hall, holding a number, waiting for one clerk to finish typing. That is the layer this is aimed at. AI-in-a-Box started in 2025 and has already reached communities in Bicol, Bataan, Baguio and the Bangsamoro region, so Metro Cebu is an expansion of something already running, not a first try.
The catch to watch
A laptop and a chatbot subscription are not a system. Nobody has published a target: not how many permits should move faster, not how many days a clearance should take after this, not how many residents it should reach. Without a number, there is no way to tell in six months whether anything changed.
There is also the quieter question of what city staff will type into a commercial chatbot. Local government work involves resident records, complaints and business filings. Which of that is safe to paste into a tool run by another company is a rule each city still has to write for itself.