Yahoo Japan Requires 11,000 Employees to Use Generative AI to Boost Efficiency by 2028

Yahoo Japan is making a daring move toward the future of work by mandating all 11,000 employees to utilize generative AI in their regular workflows. With the goal of doubling employee productivity by 2028, the company intends to use AI to supplement human workers, rather than replace them and bolster productivity, creativity and strategic thinking.

AI to Handle 30% of Daily Tasks

The transformation starts by automating approximately 30% of manual, routine tasks such as searching, drafting, documenting, meeting notes and expense reports. It develops internal tools such as SeekAI so that staff can access pre-set prompt templates to finish these functions. By automating these manual and repetitive tasks, staff will have more time to devote to higher level communications, decision making and problem solving.

Yahoo Japan’s strategy is more than just cost cutting; it is in fact an opportunity to unlock innovation. The company wants AI to push productivity forward. AI will take care of the groundwork and heavy dopamine lifting work that is quite time consuming, while human knowledge workers should focus on creative and strategic work. AI will also assist with competitive analysis, research, agenda building, proofreading and it could become a part of standard practice.

A Balanced Approach to AI Integration

While many businesses that jumped into replacing staff with AI are already expressing some remorse, Yahoo Japan seems to be taking an organic and collaborative approach. Industry leaders including Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai and AI Change Agent Rupesh Thakkar have articulated that AI is best utilized as augmentation rather than as a replacement of the human. 

Yahoo Japan’s AI first model embraces the power of human intuition to create a model of inclusive transformation. This is not a corporate policy, this is a working model into the future workplace where AI and human collaboration can lead to increased outputs.

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