DICT Rolls Out eGovAI Kuya A Assistant on eGovPH Superapp
The Department of Information and Communications Technology rolled out eGovAI on the eGovPH superapp, adding free artificial-intelligence services for Filipinos, The Philippine Star reported on September 22, 2026. Secretary Henry Aguda said DICT developers built the features on Google Gemini, led by a virtual assistant branded “Kuya A” that at launch offered eleven services spanning government-service queries, tourism mapping, farmer cropping guidance, language translation across Philippine languages, document extraction, health and legal assistants, and identity help.
Filed under Policy and dated September 28, 2026, this AI4Philippines briefing treats the eGovAI launch as Philippine public-service AI news distinct from yesterday’s Globe ASEAN digital-stack story. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in remarks read by Cabinet Secretary Benhur Abalos, urged technology that sharpens judgment without replacing it; Aguda pledged privacy, security and accessibility safeguards as the government ties the free tools to the Philippine AI+ Infrastructure Masterplan’s wider investment narrative.
Why it matters: Millions of citizens may soon paste personal documents into a state assistant. Free access can widen digital public services—but only if retention limits, human appeal paths and accurate legal answers are enforced before scale.
What it means in practice
Philippine agency, LGU and counsel leads should inventory which eGovAI tools staff may recommend to constituents; demand named owners for Gemini prompt and logging policies; assign an owner for NPC-aligned privacy reviews; run time-boxed accuracy tests on legal and health answers; and prefer designs that keep humans on benefit or identity decisions. Connect the launch to the $34 billion AI infrastructure masterplan and the coherent AI-policy debate around eGovAI.
Caveats come first. Eleven launch services are not a finished whole-of-government brain; Gemini dependency raises sovereignty questions; and farming or legal tips can be wrong without local verification. AI4Philippines therefore presents eGovAI as directional public-sector context until published usage and accuracy metrics appear.
What to watch next: monthly active citizens on Kuya A; whether weather-per-barangay features ship; and how DICT publishes model-card style disclosures. Readers can continue on the AI4Philippines homepage, or browse the Newsroom for additional briefings.
Bottom line: treat this update as orientation, not instruction. Philippine civic AI is entering the national superapp and remains early. Organizations that benefit most will treat privacy as engineering, keep humans on high-stakes answers, and refuse to confuse a free chatbot with finished public service quality.