15 perspectives on AI from Rakuten AI Optimism
In 2025, Rakuten’s annual Optimism conference became Rakuten AI Optimism, reflecting a clear shift for artificial intelligence from side topic to center stage. Across the three-day event, speakers tackled AI topics ranging from hard tech to human impact, debating agentic systems, sovereign compute, and how to build AI tools that people can actually use.
Below are some of the sharpest takeaways from the event’s AI-related sessions.
Business and fintech
Opening Keynote – Mickey Mikitani: Agentic AI, Built for People
“AI needs to be better about connecting humans.”
Rakuten Group Chairman and CEO Mickey Mikitani used the event’s opening keynote to announce the new, unified Rakuten AI, framing AI as a tool to strengthen, rather than replace, human connection. He described a shift from generative to agentic AI solutions that can “understand your needs, make decisions and carry them out” across the Rakuten Ecosystem, including shopping, travel, finance and more – driven by the powerful platform of Rakuten Mobile.
Rakuten AI: Towards an Agentic Future
Rakuten’s Chief Data and AI Officer Ting Cai went into more detail on the full-scale launch of Rakuten AI, starting with Rakuten Link and a beta web app, to a rollout on Rakuten Ichiba later in the year.
Cai outlined the move “from chat to task, from research to action, and from human browsing to agent browsing.” Rakuten’s engineers have created a fine-tuned Mixture of Experts LLM and first SLM aim to accelerate Japan’s AI development, while semantic search has already boosted GMS on Rakuten Ichiba by over 10%.
Internally, over 15,000 Rakuten employees are using Rakuten AI to boost their productivity: “We are infusing AI into everything we do.”
Towards Japan’s AI-nization: Scaling AI Nationwide Through Commerce
Entrepreneur Shuzo Narita was joined by Rakuten’s Yusuke Kobayashi to discuss how to scale AI across Japan by empowering small- to medium-sized businesses with Rakuten’s powerful data and tools. How can Rakuten lower the AI barrier for merchants? How has Englishnization helped Rakuten address the shortage of engineering talent in Japan? These questions are driving cutting-edge research and technical work across Rakuten Group each day.
AI & DX for Every Business: Co-Creating the Future through Empowerment
The Rakuten AI for Business platform is looking to democratize AI tools so that even non-technical firms can reap the benefits.
Wolt Japan’s Natalia Khizanishvili and Hotel Urashima’s Tetsuya Matsushita revealed their own companies’ hands-on use cases for Rakuten’s AI tools. Food delivery platform Wolt is using them to support the company’s couriers, customers and restaurants. The scenic Hotel Urashima, meanwhile, is leveraging Rakuten’s tools to adapt to Japan’s tourism labor shortage, drafting emails, responding to reviews, and even managing buffet operations.
Pursuing the Essential Value of Marketing in the Age of AI
Google Japan president Shinji Okuyama shared Google’s own history and philosophy for accessible AI tools like Gemini, as well as how AI is being embedded into the company’s marketing strategy.
Okuyama highlighted the importance of creating AI that everyone can use – not just specialists – and on framing AI as a marketer’s practical collaborator, rather than a black box.
Finance Meets AI: Insights from Leaders Shaping the Future
A panel of fintech leaders from beBit, Mizuho, Finatext, and Rakuten Securities looked back over the last decade of AI in finance, starting from early machine learning applications back in 2014, all the way to the hyper-personalized AI-powered experiences like those promised by Rakuten today.
With personalization at scale now in sight, the fintech industry is facing a turning point for financial UX and service design.
The Future of Finance: Hyper-Personalized. Rakuten Bank’s AI-Driven Vision for a New Banking Experience
President and CEO Tomotaka Torin highlighted Rakuten Bank’s incredible trajectory to 17 million accounts with its fully digital, 24/7 model, integrated with Rakuten Points, Rakuten Pay, Rakuten Securities, and the greater Rakuten Ecosystem.
In the future, Torin sees AI acting as a personal banker – guiding loans and budgeting, supported by smart security features such as real-time fraud detection and risk-based authentication. “Our vision is to provide each customer with personalized financial services as if they had their own dedicated banker.”
Social impacts
AI Breakthroughs: Insights from the Front Lines of Innovation
Jesse Zhang of Decagon and Tom Graham of Metaphysic joined Rakuten’s Ting Cai to discuss conversational AI agents for customer experience, and the role of AI in future entertainment. Metaphysic recently merged with a major VFX company, and Graham described AI-generated human performance – overlaying AI imagery to age and de-age real actors.
The panelists emphasized how AI voice can already fool us, while AI visuals aren’t too far behind. “In the next couple of years, we’ll be consuming entirely [AI] generated entertainment.”
AI Sovereignty and Next Generation Computation in the Technopolar Era
Cdots co-founder and veteran business executive Mitsunobu Koshiba spoke about the role of AI in national sovereignty, arguing that power is shifting from nation-states to tech platforms; that the world is heading towards a ‘technopolar’ order. He linked global debt, conflict, and other macro volatility to the strategic race for compute and AI sovereignty.
Koshiba highlighted the rising significance of research into quantum computing, as well as the importance of telecommunications providers in the data-based economy, while raising the alarm for Japan on over-reliance on foreign cloud infrastructure, AI models, and data rights.
Accelerating Cancer Research with AI to Change Lives
Researcher Dr. Toshihiko Doi joined Rakuten leaders Taku Okoshi and Yusuke Kaji to explore how AI can assist with accelerating cancer research. As Japan faces labor shortages, an aging population, and rising material costs, AI could become an essential tool to maintain the country’s high standard of medical service, boosting doctors’ expertise and bridging communication gaps between patients and staff.
But for this to happen the industry needs to be open to redefining changes. Doi stressed the importance of remembering the why in AI: “If a tool benefits the patient, we should go ahead and adopt it.”
The Quiz King’s Playbook to Decoding the AI-Native Mindset
QuizKnock’s Takushi Izawa took to the stage to represent Gen Z’s view on the AI boom. As social media algorithms encourage young people to dive deep into niche interests, Izawa stressed that education in Japan needs to engage students more by prompting them to voice their own opinions.
Izawa travels to schools around Japan to run his own in-person workshops on AI literacy. The AI of today seems primed to agree with everything the user says, so a proper understanding of what AI is actually capable of will be paramount for the future of coming generations.
The Design Frontier: Where Design Leads Next
“What and how can be done by AI; it’s the why that humans should own.”
Kashiwa Sato, the designer behind countless iconic Japanese brands including Rakuten, was joined by Hakuhodo Design president and CEO Kazufumi Nagai to explore the evolution of design’s role, from management to regional revitalization and brand unification. They highlighted how design has become democratized with AI, while design management is playing an ever-larger role in policy and business strategy, also flagging a looming fight against fakes and stressing the importance of originality.
“Human Edge” for the AI Era: From Knowledge Transfer to Character Development in Education
Governor of Nagano Prefecture Shuichi Abe, Professor Rieko Komiyama, and legendary soccer manager Takeshi Okada joined Rakuten’s Masatada Kobayashi to brainstorm how to approach education in an age when the future is less certain than ever before, and children can’t always rely on established role models.
Trial-and-error, critical thinking skills, and local resource-based programs were all on the agenda. Komiyama stressed the importance of learning embodied skills that are beyond the reach of AI, while Okada noted that with Japan’s declining birth rate, the increased attention each child receives should be channeled into character development.
Technology Beyond the Internet: Japan’s Role in Creating a Brighter Future
Professor Jun Murai – known widely as “the father of Japan’s internet” – spoke with Rakuten Group CIO and CTO Akihito Kurozumi in a forward‑looking discussion about Japan’s digital future.
The conversation connected national infrastructure and digital sovereignty with AI readiness, and emphasized that Japan should lead in defining the ethical and practical boundaries of AI, rather than import standards.
Japan’s Future in the AI Era
Economist Yusuke Narita eschewed the usual PowerPoint presentation and even the speaker’s chair, opting to sit on the hard stage floor and deliver a dose of hard AI realism. Amid Japan’s demographic situation and economic stagnation, Narita invoked the Universe 25 experiments, which followed the collapse of societies of lab rodents as they were provided with abundant living resources.
AI is becoming a core resource on par with energy and semiconductors, yet cloud and model layers continue to be dominated by just a few firms. Narita highlighted some rays of hope in investment into homegrown AI models, and a mindset shift from pessimism to practical optimism.
