Rakuten’s bold plans to democratize AI

At the recent Rakuten Optimism conference, one powerful message echoed through the halls: AI is for everyone.

The event kicked off with a keynote speech from Rakuten Group Chairman and CEO Mickey Mikitani, in which he outlined Rakuten’s plans to democratize AI, the fundamental role Rakuten Mobile must play, and the power of the internet to connect the world’s intelligence.

The power of connected intelligence

“We’re seeing a major difference between pre and post-internet technology,” Mikitani told the audience. “Where previously we had standalone computers, we’re now in a place where the network itself is gaining intelligence. What does it mean for all information to be connected?”

Mikitani compared the scale of this connected intelligence to the human brain. “The human brain is made up of around 170 billion cells. Half of those are neurons.”

The number of internet-connected devices, meanwhile – cell phones, servers, PCs – has been estimated at around 75 billion.

“If you consider that a single CPU processes faster than a single neuron, you can imagine the truly dramatic speed at which all of the world’s information is being processed,” he noted. “In a sense, we’re seeing a kind of intelligence we’ve never seen before.”

Step one: Building a foundation

“What the Rakuten Group wants to do is democratize AI,” Mikitani said. “It shouldn’t be just for a few people to use, but for everyone. So, specifically, how are we going to do this?”

Mikitani outlined three concrete steps for Rakuten’s AI business, starting with a two-pronged approach to expand Rakuten’s own AI foundation.

“One is to adopt external tools: generative AI, large language models from OpenAI, with whom we have a strong partnership, and other industry leaders. Why did they want to form such a partnership with us? It’s our rich data. And the potential for growth of Rakuten’s business model.”

The second approach involves in-house development of AI tools, such as the recently released Rakuten AI 7B. This set of large language models works at a smaller scale to the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, while demonstrating outstanding performance in the Japanese language.

Step two: AI-nization within Rakuten

The second step is to embrace the use of AI technologies within the Rakuten Group – an undertaking Mikitani has dubbed AI-nization.

“It’s more than just a vague suggestion to use AI tools,” Mikitani explained. “We’re setting concrete targets to utilize AI through a project we call Triple 20. We’re boosting marketing efficiency by 20%, operational efficiency by 20%, and the efficiency of our clients – such as the merchants and hotels on our platforms – by 20%. It’s an extremely bold target.”

Rakuten’s in-house AI tools are already being actively utilized by employees. “Our marketing strategies are changing, customer support is changing, operations are changing. AI is taking on a significant part of the workload for our programmers.”

Mikitani expressed hope that this pioneering approach will become a model case for clients and other firms, helping invigorate the broader economy.

Step three: AI for everyone

Last but not least, Rakuten wants to provide practical AI tools for everyone to use. Rakuten AI for Business has already been connecting companies of all sizes with AI tools since its launch in 2023.

“I think that this will fundamentally change store operations, service operations and the very way business is done,” Mikitani ventured. “AI can provide translation capabilities, customer support, logistics, inventory management, price setting and create concrete touchpoints with customers.”

Mikitani took the opportunity to announce the imminent launch of a new AI tool to connect customers with all of Rakuten’s services at once.

“The Rakuten Group will soon be releasing our own universal concierge,” Mikitani revealed. “This will incorporate all of Rakuten’s services. It’s not just for searching for specific items, but making recommendations through dialogue with the user.”

An onstage demonstration of the concierge service started with a simple image of a dessert and a voice request to find ingredients to make it. This evolved into a multi-stage dialogue, guiding the user to the exact products they needed within their budget.

Mikitani invited the audience to imagine the possibilities of such a tool when paired with Rakuten’s broad catalog of services.

“A concierge for shopping, for travel, one that guides you on something completely different, like investing,” he proposed. “I think that the Rakuten Group’s AI capabilities are already world-class.”

Rakuten Mobile powering revolutions

“AI is going to change everything,” Mikitani declared. “And the foundation of this is the internet, and mobile networks. This is what is connecting all of the information.”

Rakuten Mobile is about more than just building a high quality, affordable network, Mikitani stressed.

“With Rakuten Mobile, we’re not just trying to make it easier to make calls or watch YouTube,” he told the audience. “We’re trying to drastically optimize the speed of AI, which will change society. Rakuten Mobile is at the epicenter of this.”

Where existing mobile networks rely on manually operated hardware, the software-centric nature of Rakuten Mobile opens up boundless potential to take advantage of AI tools.

“In place of humans, AI can design and manage the network. Design, construction, deployment, security, monitoring, problem solving – we are operating this with the support of AI.”

Mobile is another field in which Mikitani is pursuing a mission of democratization. Rakuten has been a major proponent of Open RAN (radio access network) – an alternative to the traditional approach of inflexible proprietary systems. The recent launch of Rakuten Symphony’s Real Open RAN Licensing Program is making this cutting-edge approach available to the entire industry.

“We are carrying out the democratization of mobile networks,” Mikitani said. “We’re using off-the-shelf technology and software to build networks without compromising on quality – in fact, the quality is dramatically better. That’s what Rakuten Mobile has proven.”

Looking ahead of the curve

Mobile networks play a crucial role in AI technology. Mikitani stressed that keeping them affordable and accessible will be paramount.

“AI really belongs to everyone. And in the future, it will use a lot of data. That’s why we want everyone to be able to enjoy connectivity affordably and freely, without restrictions.”

Rakuten’s daring moves in transformative directions haven’t always been obvious to everyone, Mikitani admitted.

“People kept asking us: Why are you doing this? Why travel? Why finance? Why Englishnization? Why mobile?” he told the conference. “The answer is that we want to support all of you by looking just a little bit ahead of the curve, by taking on bold challenges and forging new paths. I believe that is our role.”