日本語 Get in touch

Marketing and AI reports for companies in Japan

Insights

Written from primary sources only: what is actually happening with ads, UGC and AI in Japan. Every number here has a citation you can check yourself.

34 articles

  1. 01 Compliance

    7 compliance checks before you launch an app or web service in Japan

    The final confirmation screen for subscriptions, consent records for marketing email, the external transmission rules, the new under 16 rules, Google Fonts and session replay. Seven items that are small fixes before launch and expensive ones after, with the primary source for each     6 min read
  2. 02 AI skills

    4 AI credentials to become an AI agent manager

    The four credentials that show you can build, diagnose, run and prove AI agents, in the order to take them, with the real costs and hours, and two prompts that turn them into a job offer     7 min read
  3. 03 Design

    5 portfolio websites to build with Claude x Higgsfield

    Five portfolio sites that look like agency work costing thousands, and every one of them responds to the visitor: their cursor, their hand or their scroll. Higgsfield makes the visuals and Claude builds the page. No 3D engine and no hand written code     9 min read
  4. 04 Design

    A website that moves as you scroll is cheap to make now. Speed and motion settings decide whether it works

    The hero that plays like a film as the visitor scrolls used to need a 3D artist. Today it is a generated clip and a few dozen lines of code. What has not changed is Google's 2.5 second target for the main content and the W3C criterion that motion triggered by scrolling can be turned off     3 min read
  5. 05 UGC

    Under Japan's stealth marketing rule, a review you asked for is your own ad

    Since 1 October 2023, a post a business asks for counts as that business's advertising under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations. The cases so far involve small incentives: ¥500 off, free product, a discount on a flu vaccination.     3 min read
  6. 06 Advertising

    ChatGPT ads are live in Japan, and the conversation picks which one you see

    OpenAI launched ChatGPT ads in Japan in August 2026 for Free and Go users. An ad sits below the answer, is chosen from the context of the conversation, and does not change the answer. Japanese businesses can now buy them through self-service.     3 min read
  7. 07 Advertising

    Internet advertising passed half of Japan's ad spend in 2025

    Dentsu puts Japan's 2025 internet ad spend at ¥4.05 trillion, 50.2% of all advertising and the first time above half. Video ads crossed ¥1 trillion. The detailed analysis names vertical video on social platforms as the driver.     2 min read
  8. 08 Content marketing

    People in their twenties watch 46 minutes of live TV on a weekday

    In MIC's FY2025 media time survey, published in June 2026, people in their twenties spend 266.9 minutes online on an average weekday and 107.1 minutes of that on video sharing services. Live TV gets 46.3 minutes. In their sixties the order reverses.     3 min read
  9. 09 Advertising

    Only one in 15 advertisers knew what their No.1 survey had asked

    When the Consumer Affairs Agency interviewed advertisers using "No.1" claims in 2024, most had been approached by a research firm, few had measured any effect, and only one of 15 could describe the survey behind the claim.     3 min read
  10. 10 AI skills

    The 38.8% who never learned how

    58.8% of people in Japan have now used generative AI, up from 26.7% a year earlier. Of those who have not, 38.8% say the reason is that they do not know how. That is the highest share of the four countries surveyed, and it is a training problem, not an attitude problem.     3 min read
  11. 11 International

    Your next customer does not read Japanese

    Japan had 3,768,977 foreign residents at the end of 2024, a record, up 10.5% in one year. In the year to October 2024 the Japanese national population fell by 898,000. If your product, your website and your support only work in Japanese, you are opting out of the only part of the market that is growing.     2 min read
  12. 12 Automation

    898,000 fewer people, and the work did not shrink

    Japan's population fell by 550,000 in the year to October 2024. The Japanese national population fell by 898,000. The working age share is 59.6% and the share aged 65 and over is 29.3%, a record. Automation in Japan is no longer a productivity project. It is how the work gets done at all.     2 min read
  13. 13 Governance

    If your staff use AI, the AI Guidelines for Business are about you

    Japan's AI Guidelines for Business reached version 1.2 on 31 March 2026. They name three roles, developer, provider and user, and ten principles. Most companies assume they apply to vendors. The moment an employee uses a model in their work, the company is an AI user under the guidelines, and the user has obligations too.     3 min read
  14. 14 Privacy

    The two sentences from the privacy regulator your staff have not read

    In June 2023 Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission told every business handling personal data two things about generative AI. Check that any personal data in a prompt is within the stated purpose of use. And before entering personal data, check how the provider handles it, because if it is used for anything beyond answering you, consent is needed. Three years on, many companies still have no written rule that says either.     3 min read
  15. 15 AI adoption

    Why your AI pilot never became a product

    27.0% of Japanese companies report no organizational effort around generative AI. The same question puts the United States at 1.4%. What separates them is not the tooling.     3 min read
  16. 16 AI adoption

    Japan caught up on adoption and not on effect

    86.4% of Japanese companies use generative AI. The United States is at 90.9%. The adoption gap has essentially closed. What remains is the gap in what changed afterwards.     2 min read
  17. 17 AI usage

    Japan treats AI as a dictionary, the US treats it as a colleague

    Asked what generative AI is most like, the second most common Japanese answer was "dictionary or encyclopaedia". In the US and China it was "friend". That difference produces a difference in results.     3 min read
  18. 18 Engineering

    Only 7.0% of Japanese companies use AI to write code

    Japan reports 7.0% usage of generative AI for code generation. The United States is at 35.4%, China 33.5%, Germany 25.0%. This is where the gap in software speed comes from.     3 min read
  19. 19 Talent

    3.8% of Japanese companies say their DX talent is good enough

    In IPA's survey, 3.8% of Japanese firms said they have adequate DX talent by quality. The United States answered 52.9%. Meanwhile 80% report a shortage and 19.4% do no hiring at all.     3 min read
  20. 20 Design management

    0.8% of Japanese manufacturers credit design for their success

    Surveyed across 25,000 manufacturers with 100 or more staff, 38.3% credited quality and function for success in the domestic market. Design got 0.8%. For the US market, design got 0.0%.     2 min read
  21. 21 Productivity

    Japanese manufacturing went from first in the OECD to twentieth

    In 2000 Japan ranked first in the OECD for manufacturing labor productivity. The 2025 survey puts it 20th of 35. Measured per hour across the whole economy, Japan is 28th of 38.     2 min read
  22. 22 Policy

    A Cabinet decision now asks for a division of roles between people and AI

    Japan's Basic Plan for Artificial Intelligence, adopted 23 December 2025, states that the obstacle is implementation rather than research. Its fourth pillar is effectively a design brief.     2 min read
  23. 23 Policy

    Japan's AI Act has no penalties and still creates a duty for users

    The AI Promotion Act (Act No. 53 of 2025) took full effect on 1 September 2025 with no penalty provisions. Article 7 places an efforts duty not only on developers but on companies that merely use AI.     2 min read
  24. 24 Accessibility

    Reasonable accommodation became mandatory in 2024 with no standard attached

    Since 1 April 2024, providing reasonable accommodation has been a legal duty for private businesses in Japan. No standard states what a website has to meet in order to satisfy it.     3 min read
  25. 25 Accessibility

    The European Accessibility Act applies to Japanese exporters

    The EU's European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. If you sell products or services into the EU, being based outside the EU does not exempt you.     2 min read
  26. 26 Accessibility

    10.0% of Japanese over 65 bank online, against 94.2% in Sweden

    In a Cabinet Office international comparison, the share of over 65s using the internet for banking was 10.0% in Japan, 73.9% in the US, 31.7% in Germany and 94.2% in Sweden. The most aged country uses it least.     3 min read
  27. 27 Design

    People over 75 now outnumber those aged 65 to 74

    As of 1 October 2025, 17.3% of Japan's population is 75 or older, against 12.1% aged 65 to 74. What the phrase "designing for older users" refers to has quietly changed.     2 min read
  28. 28 Design systems

    Japan's Digital Agency design system is MIT licensed

    The tokens and reference components of the Digital Agency Design System are published on GitHub under the MIT license. They were built for government services and private companies are permitted to use them.     2 min read
  29. 29 Management

    Japan subsidises both AI adoption and the retraining around it

    The IT introduction subsidy became the Digitalization and AI Introduction Subsidy in 2026, with a ceiling of ¥45 million and a rate reaching three quarters. Training costs are covered separately at up to 75%.     2 min read
  30. 30 Productivity

    Developers were 19% slower with AI and felt 20% faster

    In a randomised controlled trial with experienced developers, working with AI tools took 19% longer. The same participants reported that AI had made them 20% faster.     2 min read
  31. 31 Talent

    3.54% annual productivity growth would erase Japan's IT talent shortage

    METI projects an IT talent shortfall of up to 790,000 people by 2030. The same report contains one line stating that supply and demand balance at 3.54% annual productivity growth. The baseline assumption is 0.7%.     2 min read
  32. 32 DX

    Legacy systems are not the main obstacle to DX

    In IPA's survey, fewer than 20% of companies in Japan, the United States and Germany call legacy a major obstacle. Modernisation activity has plateaued. Something else is doing the blocking.     2 min read
  33. 33 Marketing

    Being cited by AI now matters more than ranking in search

    Individual generative AI use in Japan has reached 58.8%. The starting point for finding information is shifting from search engines to AI. That changes who reads your company website.     2 min read
  34. 34 Process design

    Training does not fix a badly designed internal system

    Customer facing products get improvement budgets. Internal systems do not. The cost of a bad internal system still gets paid, every day, in employee time that nobody counts.     2 min read

Recognize the problem

Brand, video, websites and ads, made and run by one team. Tell us where things stand.

Get in touch