Sold-out HighLevel LIVE Manila puts AI business tools in focus

• IN PHOTO (From left): HighLevel Co-founders Shaun Clark, Robin Alex, and Varun Vairavan.

HighLevel LIVE Manila drew a sold-out crowd at the Manila Marriott Hotel at Newport World Resorts on Aug. 8 and 9, reflecting growing interest among Filipino entrepreneurs, freelancers and agency owners in artificial intelligence-powered tools for running and scaling businesses.

The Manila gathering marked HighLevel’s second LIVE event this year following a sold-out stop in New Delhi, as the company brings its community events closer to markets where its platform has developed a strong user base.

Over two days, HighLevel’s three co-founders and nine featured speakers discussed AI-powered automation, voice and conversation AI, and practical strategies that agencies and entrepreneurs can use to grow their businesses.

HighLevel co-founder Shaun Clark said the strong community in the Philippines made Manila a natural destination for the company’s LIVE event.

“Well, I’m excited about it because I think it’s… I feel like we should have been here sooner. I mean, the… The user base here is amazing. The customer base here is amazing. It’s a very entrepreneurial place. And I think, you know, for us, it’s great. Because I feel like we’re finally able to do right by our partners and our customers by coming here,” Clark said.

HighLevel provides an AI-powered business operating system designed to help agencies and businesses generate leads, manage customer relationships, automate processes and handle customer communications through a single platform.

The company is positioning AI as a tool that businesses of different sizes can use without requiring large technical teams or extensive resources.

HighLevel Co-founder Varun Vairavan said Filipino professionals have been involved in implementing solutions using HighLevel since the company’s early years.

“So, I think we’ve always been aware because I think a large part of our user base and the people that are helping implement solutions with our platform are based out of the Philippines. And that’s been true from day one. So, I think if anything, we’re late. I think we probably could have been here a couple of years earlier. But now that we’re here, I think we’ll keep doing this often,” Vairavan said.

The event featured sessions demonstrating how AI is increasingly being integrated into business operations, from customer conversations and marketing to sales and automation.

Digital Marketer, Billy Gene, opened the event with a discussion on autonomous business and the use of AI employees to support companies around the clock.

The Colony founder Matthew Panganiban tackled conversation AI and how freelancers can use the technology to develop and expand agency businesses, while  CRM Pros Founder Mike Reimer discussed systems for selling, building and deploying AI voice agents at scale.

Other speakers included Marketing Autopilot Owner Chris Dillon, SaligPay Co-founder Cece Tan, AI Automation Specialist RJ Villamer, EmpowrSoft™ Founder and CEO Joanna Sherrow, Entrepreneur Declan O’Reilly, and globally recognized TEDx speaker Priya Jaganathan, covering topics ranging from WhatsApp as a revenue channel to affiliate systems, pricing and business growth.

HighLevel co-founder Robin Alex said Filipino talent has also played a significant role in supporting agencies and businesses using the platform in other parts of the world.

“I think the Filipino market has been secretly powering our whole ecosystem. A lot of agencies from around the world, a lot of businesses, come to the… The Philippines looking for great individuals to help support them as entrepreneurs as well as growing their business. And so, for us, finally being here and getting to see the community is really impactful because they’re the underpinning of our business,” Alex said.

The sold-out Manila event underscores the Philippines’ growing role in HighLevel’s global community, both as a market for its platform and as a source of professionals helping businesses adopt and manage digital and AI-powered tools.

For HighLevel, the Manila stop also forms part of its broader effort to make AI-powered business tools accessible to entrepreneurs and agencies, allowing smaller teams to automate operations and compete without the level of resources traditionally required to scale a business.