As the era of generative AI agents begins, Japanese companies are moving ahead with the practical application of AI agents. Examples include MUFG Bank's launch of full-scale operations and verification projects by local governments and companies.
Japanese companies are stepping up efforts to deploy AI agents across their organizations while facing challenges such as legacy-system integration and data silos. Developments in government-led digital transformation and the issues identified in that area have also been reported.
Examples that have begun moving forward include MUFG Bank's launch of full-scale operations for Salesforce's autonomous AI agent, “Agentforce 360 for Financial Services,” for the financial industry. Osaka City and Hitachi conducted a pilot project for commuter notifications and confirmed the potential to reduce work hours by approximately 40% at most.
DeNA prepared for the internal deployment of the autonomous AI engineer Devin at a scale of approximately 2,000 employees and completed the code migration for its asset management API in just under one month, demonstrating an increase in development speed. SOMPO Holdings announced plans to introduce AI agent tools across the company, while Rakuten added agent-based AI to the Rakuten Ichiba app.
Going forward, a diverse range of companies, including SoftBank, NTT DATA, CTC×Toyota Auto Body, DATAFLUCT and bellFace, are expected to proceed with the testing and adoption of AI agents. Their applications are expanding into areas such as customer service, operational support, quality control and sales support.