President and COO of DITO Donald Lim labels AI a 'rupture' that puts leadership on the clock

Artificial intelligence is not simply the next chapter of digital transformation. It is compressing the time leaders have to respond, reshaping the value of experience and forcing marketers to reconsider how their organisations work.

For Donald Patrick Lim (pictured), president and COO of DITO CME Holdings, businesses have moved into an era of what he called an “AI rupture” - a discontinuous leap in which waiting years to adapt is no longer an option.

“We are not in an AI boom; we are in an AI rupture,” Lim told delegates as he opened DMA Philippines 2026. “You don’t need years to adapt, and inaction becomes existential.”

Previous technology shifts gave organisations time to build capabilities around new channels: websites, social media, mobile and digital advertising gradually became part of the marketing stack. AI, Lim argued, is different because it is beginning to change not just where marketing happens, but how the work itself is organised.

His assessment comes as businesses globally move towards restructuring around AI. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on more than 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers, found that 77% expect to reskill or upskill employees in response to AI, while 41% expect to reduce their workforce where AI can replicate work.

Lim framed the shift through the successive technology revolutions that have shaped modern business.

The industrial era was built around scale and manufacturing. The internet created an abundance of information, requiring leaders to manage knowledge. Mobile made connectivity universal and accelerated the importance of speed.

Now, he said, intelligence itself is becoming increasingly automated.

Every technology revolution changes what leadership requires, and AI is no different, only faster.

That acceleration changes the leadership brief. Instead of treating AI as another capability to be delegated to technology teams, Lim argued that executives need to redesign organisations around what machines can do - and, critically, what humans should continue doing.

“It’s not an IT agenda anymore. It’s really a leadership mandate,” he said.

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For marketing departments, that means moving beyond the familiar instruction to simply “use AI”. Lim’s argument was more structural: marketers should examine which tasks AI can absorb, which roles will change and what new responsibilities emerge as a result.

“If you have a marketing department, you have people under you. It’s not about, okay, everyone uses AI,” he said. “You have to take a step back, relook at your organisation, and see how you can adapt.”

That distinction could become increasingly important as AI moves from generative chatbots towards agentic systems capable of reasoning, planning and executing tasks. Lim described this next generation of AI as systems that can “plan, decide, and act autonomously”.

The entry-level marketing job is also changing

One of the more consequential implications Lim raised was what happens to the traditional career ladder.

For decades, junior employees have built experience by taking on repetitive or mechanical work - data entry, basic analysis, customer support and other high-volume tasks. Those tasks have also provided the entry point into professional careers.

AI threatens to remove some of those steppingstones.

“Before there was a time when we graduated and would have a job,” Lim said. “Now when you graduate, you will be looking, and all the companies are saying no. We have AI to automate.”

The challenge is not necessarily that humans disappear from those functions, but that the composition of work changes. The WEF similarly expects 47% of employers to transition workers from roles affected by AI into other positions, alongside the 41% expecting workforce reductions.

Lim therefore sees a different premium emerging in hiring: experience combined with the ability to work effectively with AI.

If you give a senior manager a choice, if you have a choice, a 35-year-old, 15 years experience who doesn’t know AI, and a 22-year-old, very good in AI but no experience. Who would you get?

His answer was rooted in the idea that technical fluency is becoming easier to acquire, while judgement and accumulated experience are harder to replicate.

“Because in AI it’s all about the prompts and what you ask and the human insight and the wisdom,” Lim said. “And therefore in the tech space, experience matters much more than understanding the tech because tech is easy to teach.”

For marketers, the battlefield is moving beyond the funnel

The implications extend into media strategy.

Lim argued that AI-driven search and discovery could fragment audiences further, reducing the relevance of a traditional funnel and pushing brands towards a broader mix of channels, creators, activations and discovery platforms.

His prediction is not that traditional media simply disappears, but that marketers will have to manage increasingly fragmented touchpoints with greater precision.

At DITO, he said the approach for the next two to three years includes radio, ground activations and digital influencers.

He also pointed to a shift from relying on a small number of mass-reach influencers towards managing much larger networks of creators.

“Not having three or five influencers with 1 million followers, but we’re going to use 1,000 influencers because AI can allow you to manage them with speed,” Lim said.

That same logic applies to search. Lim said generative engine optimisation does not simply replace search engine optimisation, but expands the discovery battlefield beyond a brand’s own website.

“SEO is all about your website. The problem now is that if you’re looking for the best pizza in Manila, you might go into Grab,” he said.

For marketers, that means understanding how brands appear across the wider ecosystem in which AI systems discover, interpret and recommend information - including reviews, platforms, affiliates and other third-party signals.

AI can make the work faster. It cannot decide what matters.

Yet Lim's argument ultimately returned to a distinctly human capability: meaning.

He cautioned against treating AI proficiency as an end in itself, particularly as marketing becomes increasingly saturated with AI-generated content.

“If an AI can give you that, fine,” he said, referring to the ability to create a stronger connection between a brand and its audience. “But I think you just have to be sensitive… Put in human work, so people feel it also.”

The point is less about rejecting AI-generated creative work than about retaining human judgement over when and why it is used.

“Always remember, marketing is connecting your brand and customer,” Lim said. “You answer the question: If AI allows them to have a stronger affinity with you, or do they take a step back?”

That places a different responsibility on marketers. AI can generate variants, analyse data, automate processes and accelerate production, but the marketer still has to determine what the brand should say, whom it should matter to and whether the resulting work creates a meaningful connection.

Lim distilled that distinction towards the end of his keynote:

AI can create, but humans are the ones who create meaning. AI can give an answer, but for humans, it’s all about asking what the right question is. AI can predict, but in the end, humans can decide. And AI can automate, but humans can inspire.

The new marketing advantage may be judgement

For Lim, the answer to AI disruption is therefore not simply more technical training.

He pointed to critical thinking, discernment, empathy, creativity, cultural intelligence, collaboration and curiosity as capabilities that organisations need to cultivate alongside AI fluency.

That argument extends into education, where Lim said universities need to reconsider how they prepare young people for an economy in which information and technical capabilities are increasingly abundant.

“The hard part is now being human,” he said.

For marketing leaders, that may be the more difficult organisational challenge. AI adoption can begin with a tool, but its consequences reach into recruitment, organisational design, media investment, creative development and leadership itself.

And unlike previous digital transitions, Lim believes there is less time to work it out.

“The future leader should be a learner, a visionary, forever curious, a builder, a collaborator, and ethical,” he said.

The technology may be moving faster than organisations can comfortably absorb. Lim's message to marketers was that the response cannot be to wait for the next playbook.

“You just have to start doing it, and you’ll find your way,” he said.

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