Philippine Businesses Turn to AI for Productivity, but Data Security Remains a Hurdle, Synology ASEAN Survey Finds

More than 90% of Philippine respondents to a Synology survey say AI-ready infrastructure is important to workflow efficiency and productivity, but 70% cite data security and privacy as a key challenge to AI adoption.

The findings point to a practical issue for organizations putting AI to work: the value of AI depends not only on the applications themselves, but also on whether the data behind them can be accessed, managed and protected across the systems where it resides.

The findings were shared at the Synology Annual Media Event 2026, where the company discussed data infrastructure, cyber resilience and AI-powered productivity as businesses expand their use of AI.

“AI creates value when it helps people do their work better and enables the business to respond more effectively to its customers,” said Antoine Yang, Southeast Asia Head at Synology. “Our focus is to help organizations sustain those gains as adoption grows, with data they can trust and a dependable path to recovery when disruption occurs.”

The survey points to several data-management issues that organizations need to address as AI use expands. Around 47% of respondents cite data quality and availability as challenges, while 40% report that their data is scattered across different environments. Nearly 40% also say they lack visibility into how information submitted to third-party AI tools is managed.

Infrastructure choices are part of this picture. Approximately 74% of respondents favor on-premises or hybrid approaches, compared with 9.9% who prioritize public cloud.

The survey also found a gap in confidence around recovery. While 72.4% of respondents express confidence in their ability to recover from ransomware using protected backups, only 25.4% describe themselves as very confident.

“As businesses expand their data infrastructure, they also need confidence that essential services can recover when disruption occurs,” said Claire Huang, Philippines Country Manager at Synology.

Building the infrastructure to support AI adoption

Against this backdrop, Synology is focusing on three priorities: scalable data infrastructure, stronger cyber resilience and AI-powered productivity with greater control over business data.

Synology’s 2026 portfolio includes PAS7700, an active-active NVMe all-flash storage solution designed for mission-critical workloads, alongside the new FS and RS series. Synology Tiering, together with data reduction capabilities in DSM 7.4, helps businesses manage growing data demands more efficiently.

For cyber resilience, ActiveProtect appliances provide centralized backup management, immutable data protection and automated isolation. ActiveProtect Manager 2.0 expands support to Nutanix AHV and Proxmox VE, along with Amazon EC2, Azure VM and Google Workspace, while adding cross-platform recovery and expanded cloud recovery capabilities.

The DP5200 adds a compact 1U option to the ActiveProtect lineup for growing organizations and remote offices.

Synology is also integrating AI into everyday work through Synology Office Suite, ChatPlus and Meet, while the DVA7400 brings AI-powered video search and analytics to on-premises surveillance. Looking ahead, the company also previewed scale-out storage and hybrid surveillance solutions for enterprise environments.

“When businesses can trust how their data is managed and protected, they are better positioned to turn AI initiatives into lasting business results,” Claire Huang added.