On June 10, 2026, Recursive COO Mikiko Ujihara spoke at INTLOOP Ventures MIX 2026.
Ujihara joined Soichiro Imaeda, State Minister of the Cabinet Office and State Minister for Digital Transformation, and Daichi Tachibana, CEO of PeopleX, for Session 05, titled “AI Is Japan’s Future: Exploring AI Solutions That Will Drive Industrial Transformation.” The discussion brought together perspectives from government, startups, and implementation support to examine the current state and future direction of Japan’s AI industry.
Session Highlights:
During the session, Recursive shared its perspective on the unique patterns of AI demand emerging in the Japanese market through hands-on enterprise implementation work.
Ujihara explained that in Japan, AI is no longer simply a tool for cost reduction or operational efficiency. It is increasingly becoming a “survival strategy” in response to severe labor shortages. She noted that AI demand in Japan is not broad and shallow, but instead deeply tied to the digitization of tacit expert knowledge and the need to adapt to highly detailed, real-world operational requirements.
Against this backdrop, Recursive emphasized its “Services-led Delivery” approach, which focuses not on forcing operations to fit prebuilt tools, but on integrating AI into Japan’s high-quality field processes. Ujihara also introduced Recursive’s “Forward Deployed Team” model, through which teams work alongside clients to understand business context, translate it into technical requirements, and support deployment all the way into production.
She also highlighted that advancing AI implementation requires more than corporate effort alone. Foundational elements such as structured data, safety evaluation, responsibility frameworks, and shared infrastructure in non-competitive domains will be critical to accelerating AI adoption across Japan.
In addition, Ujihara pointed to manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, energy, climate and environmental response, and robotics as areas where Japan’s strengths can combine with AI to create globally competitive solutions. She shared the view that Japan’s true competitive edge lies not in foundation models alone, but in the ability to apply AI to solve complex real-world challenges.
Recursive’s Commitment:
Recursive is committed to deeply embedding AI into industries and social infrastructure in order to help build a fairer and more sustainable society.
This speaking engagement provided an important opportunity to reinforce how AI should be grounded in real operational contexts and translated into meaningful social implementation in Japan. Recursive will continue supporting AI deployment from both the business and technical sides, while contributing to the creation of globally relevant value from Japan.
Founded by a former senior research engineer at Google DeepMind, Recursive brings together world-class talent from across disciplines to engineer results where others can't.
