Short answer
Computer vision is software that interprets images and video: identifying objects, counting items, reading a gauge, spotting a defect on a production line. A camera over a loading bay that logs plate numbers and timestamps is computer vision doing bookkeeping, which is the shape most business uses actually take.
Also called: CV, Image recognition, Visual AI
Feasibility hinges on how narrow the visual question is. Counting sacks on a pallet under fixed lighting is a solved problem. Judging whether a customer looks unhappy is not a question a camera can answer, however confidently a demo suggests otherwise. Most real projects sit between those poles, and the deciding factors are consistent camera position, consistent lighting, and enough labelled examples of the thing you want detected, including the awkward ones.
Two constraints shape deployments in the Philippines. Anything capturing identifiable people brings the Data Privacy Act of 2012 into scope, which means a lawful basis, notice, retention limits and a real answer to who can view the footage. The second is bandwidth: streaming every frame to a cloud model is expensive, so production systems usually run a small model on-site and send only events or short clips upward.
Where this comes up in our work
Related terms
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Optical character recognition converts text in images and scans into machine-readable characters, turning a photographed delivery receipt into data a system can file and search.
AI Agent
An AI agent is a system that uses a language model to decide which actions to take, then takes them through connected tools: reading a database, sending an email, updating a booking record.
Workflow Automation
Workflow automation is software that runs a defined sequence of business steps without a person moving data between systems: a submitted form creates a record, notifies the right team, files the attachment and schedules a follow-up.
Custom Software vs Off-the-Shelf Software
Custom software is built for one organisation’s specific process; off-the-shelf software is a finished product many organisations subscribe to, such as Shopify or QuickBooks.
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