Tech & Innovation
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Blog
Building an AI-Ready Culture at Rakuten Product Conference 2025
Rakuten Product Conference (RPC) 2025, a flagship event from Rakuten India, is set to take place virtually on April 23. Now in its fifth year, RPC 2025 offers a deep dive into what it takes to build an AI-ready organization. Free and open to the public, the conference promises to be an insightful and engaging experience for anyone looking to leverage AI for sustainable growth and innovation.…
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Mickey Mikitani outlines bold ambition for telco transformation at MWC 2025
Rakuten brought its unique blueprint for “Intelligent Growth” to MWC Barcelona 2025, with an exciting schedule of speaker sessions, live demos, partnership meetings and more. Headlining the Rakuten Booth Theater on Day 2 of the show was Rakuten Group Chairman and CEO Mickey Mikitani, who discussed the vital importance of Open RAN for the future of telecom, what sets Rakuten Mobil…
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Bridging the gap: How Rakuten AI is empowering Japanese SMEs to thrive in the AI era
In today’s era of rising wages, inflation and labor shortages, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Japan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). And while generative AI and AI-powered services are creating unprecedented opportunities for businesses to enhance customer experiences and drive growth, a recent Rakuten survey found that many Japanese SMEs remain on the sidelines, hesitant to e…
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Inside Rakuten AI: Guangda Li on reinventing customer experiences with GenAI
In this series, we sit down with Rakuten AI leaders for a deep dive into the stories behind this transformative technology and the inspiring individuals driving Rakuten’s vision of AI for all. Watch this interview and others in the Inside Rakuten AI series on our YouTube channel. Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing how we shop, travel and live, offering hyper-personalized experiences that del…
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Rakuten’s robot revolution rolls up on Tokyo
A glimpse of Japan’s robotic future has rolled into Tokyo. In November 2024, Rakuten launched a new autonomous delivery service in Tokyo’s Harumi neighborhood. As the name suggests, the service employs autonomous robots to deliver products from a number of local supermarkets, cafes and restaurants, serving around 24,000 households. In February 2025, this roster of rolling robots was boosted by the…
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From matcha to milestones: Rakuten’s week at MWC 2025
MWC Barcelona 2025 has come to a close, and what a week it was! The world’s largest and most influential connectivity event saw 109,000 visitors from 205 countries convene in Barcelona to discuss the future of the industry, marking a return to pre-pandemic attendance levels. Over the span of four jam-packed days at the Fira Barcelona Gran Via, 2,900 exhibitors and an extensive conference program m…
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Rakuten at the IDR User Forum 2024: Inspiring the Next Generation of AI Innovators
At the IDR User Forum 2024, held on December 13 in Tokyo, Rakuten once again demonstrated its commitment to advancing the future of AI by fostering collaboration between academia and industry. Organized by the National Institute of Informatics (NII), the forum serves as a platform for researchers, students and data providers to exchange ideas and showcase innovative projects. Rakuten, a long-time…
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Tech & Innovation
Ting Cai on Rakuten’s embrace of AI 2.0
“There is no AI without humans. But humans with AI can achieve so much more.” Speaking at the most recent Rakuten Technology Conference, Chief AI & Data Officer Ting Cai shared Rakuten’s strategic vision for artificial intelligence and addressed the unprecedented scale of industry investment, which has reached into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Why are all these co…
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Inside Rakuten AI: Shaimay Shah on driving Rakuten’s AI transformation
In this series, we sit down with Rakuten AI leaders for a deep dive into the stories behind this transformative technology and the inspiring individuals driving Rakuten’s vision of AI for all. Watch this interview and others in the Inside Rakuten AI Series on our YouTube channel. Rakuten is re-shaping how businesses operate, and people work by integrating AI into everyday job processes. At the hea…
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