Q&A: Trinidad Talks About Higher-Value, But Will it Deliver?

The BPO and ITO industries are a key part of Trinidad and Tobago’s knowledge economy, but it remains smaller compared with other Caribbean countries such as Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. That’s why the country’s largest private-sector business organization, the American Chamber of Commerce of Trinidad and Tobago (AMCHAM T&T), wants to position itself as a hub for higher-value technology services, including artificial intelligence.

This year’s Tech Hub Islands Summit (T.H.I.S.) 2026 event on June 30-July 1, 2026, will showcase companies, particularly in AI and cybersecurity, that are exporting products and services to neighboring countries. In an exclusive interview with Nearshore Americas, Nirad Tewarie, CEO of AMCHAM T&T, spoke about the upcoming event, the evolution of the industry in Trinidad and Tobago, leveraging the skilled diaspora, and why he believes entry-level BPO jobs should be automated using AI.

Edited excerpts:

Q: What is your report card from last year’s AMCHAM event to this year — what progress has been made?

We’re somewhere between a B-minus and a B-plus as a country. There’s a lot of room to grow. It’s very easy to go from very bad to okay, but much harder to go from okay to great. That’s where we are now.

We’re seeing progress in the public sector. There’s been some digitization of low-hanging processes. We’re seeing some movement in customs, which is a critical one for AMCHAM in terms of trade facilitation, and it will do a lot to unlock economic activity if we can digitize most of the customs process, reduce corruption, and enhance security.

On the private sector side, we are seeing some significantly implemented tech projects. Up to last year, a lot of the tech projects were in the trial stage, but now companies are starting to reap the rewards with efficiency gains and the return on investment. We’re also seeing a couple of local companies, or companies with primarily local content, working in Trinidad but selling outside.

Q: How is the BPO industry doing on the ground in 2026? Are foreign companies coming, or is it mostly press releases?

In the BPO sector, we’re seeing some movement. Some of them are niche BPOs, not just traditional ones. We’ve also seen some banks and firms set up shared services centers in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), as the country has a lot of accountants and lots of lawyers.

We have high levels of productivity among professionals to be able to support global companies, while also having lower costs. Traditional BPOs are increasing in number in the country. For example, Scotiabank has opened a shared services center here. EY and American Airlines have their shared services centers in the country.

Q: How close is T&T to attracting high-value tech jobs, not just service delivery roles?

We’re early in the journey. There’s a growing recognition. This government has been in office for one year, and they’ve started to settle into their own policies. They’ve done some significant groundwork in their relationship with the United States and with countries such as India. We hope that in the coming months, we’ll see a little more acceleration around the nearshoring strategy.

Q: AI is automating the very BPO functions T&T is trying to sell. How do you reconcile that?

We’re still in the transition phase. Humans are still required to support the transition, even at the lower levels. The challenge is identifying where companies need talent, and where AI still needs human support, or simply can’t replace human interaction.

I’ll be very honest: I’ve never been an advocate for entry-level BPO jobs. There’s a place for that in a strategy, but I think it’s a flawed strategy, because those jobs will always move based on market conditions. The industry could spike and then decline in a relatively short period.

What you need is a strategy where entry-level BPO jobs support the development of higher-value businesses. Given the industry’s high employee turnover, the skills people acquire should be transferable to higher-value roles.

Q: How can the private sector take a more active part in AI adoption, policy development, and corporate training?

We have a digital transformation committee with three dozen member company representatives, and they work on policy development with AMCHAM. The Artificial Intelligence Innovation Centre (AIIC) now sits on that committee as well. We’re going to do a program with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the AIIC, where up to 10 companies will develop AI implementation plans over the next 12 months.

We are also in the process — and we have a framework document being discussed amongst AMCHAM, the AIIC, and a large corporate — of using the AIIC’s capacity to develop solutions for that corporate sector.

Q: Hyperscale data centers are missing from T&T. Is there any focus on this?

The answer is complex because it’s not just a question of data centers; it’s a question of finance, energy, water, and customers.

The government has been talking about it. We have the Minister of Public Administration and AI opening our conference, and I expect he’ll talk more about this because he spoke about a government-backed data center recently.

On the energy side, the energy sector expects that within the next 18 to 36 months, we should have enough gas to attract data center businesses.

Q: What specific mechanism does AMCHAM have to turn diaspora goodwill into investment or talent return?

AMCHAM can’t do that alone, though it plays a role in catalyzing it. If you look at our agenda, you’d see a lot of people on it are Trinidadians — two from Google, one from AWS. IBM’s Vice President of AI, Nicholas Fuller, is a Trinidadian; he was just at our annual general meeting (AGM), where he spoke about what’s happening in AI and ideas for Trinidad and Tobago.

We provide a hub to industry stakeholders so the network can connect and understand the opportunities. Hopefully, in a short time, they will see opportunities to collaborate, to do things in Trinidad, or maybe move back when they have flexible work options.