Yahoo Japan, who also operates popular service LINE, is betting big on mandatory AI, hoping it will unlock the key to “workplace innovation” in the 21st century. But what would this look like?
Picture this: During every meeting, an AI is sribing notes on the side; Employees caught up in menial paperwork or extensive preliminary research now hand the reigns to an AI system that can do everything from research and meeting documentation to expense management and even competitive analysis.
The big idea? To encourage higher-level critical thinking and communication from employees rather than robotic, routine task completion. By letting AI handle the groundwork, Yahoo Japan is gambling on a stream of employee innovation and productivity.
The Plan
The company’s first goal is to replace universal parts of office life -- routine drafting and documentation -- with AI. Yahoo Japan estimates this takes up around 30% of all employees’ time.
AI will also be used in the workplace to create agendas, summarize meetings, and proofread reports. Tasks that, for the most part, do not hold much weight. Employees are already using an Internal AI tool called SeekAI that does some tasks, like expense handling and basic research and summary.
This initial goal aims to free up room for employees to concentrate on more important decision-making and discussions, which will, in turn, boost productivity. What differentiates Yahoo Japan from other companies is its utilization of AI as a support layer and productivity booster rather than a simple tool for cost-cutting.
The firm’s larger proclaimed goal of doubling productivity by 2028 is a much more immense task. A 100% increase through AI is hard to imagine, because AI can not yet meaningfully perform many employee tasks.
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is still a ways away, and today’s most advanced reasoning systems are still extremely unpredictable. The human brain’s ability to form insights, have an imagination, and be creative has yet to be replicated. AIs lack the nuance, empathy, and real-world context an employee can easily combine to make a decision, making it extremely difficult for it to completely replace humans.
If working in tandem with AI is the new wave, Yahoo Japan is taking a meaningful step in a trend that may prove to be extremely beneficial -- and less disruptive -- in the future.
Will It Work?
The debate on AI in the workplace is fierce. While some studies have produced mixed answers, C-suite leadership seems to also be at odds with employees on AI implementation in the office.
Starting with the negatives, AI may reduce brain connectivity in employees. A recent MIT study split participants into three groups (LLM, Search Engine, and Brain Only), had them write essays, and tracked their cognitive load using an electroenphalography (EEG). The essays were then analyzed and scored by human and AI judges.
Significant differences in brain connectivity were present: while Brain-only participants had the strongest networks, LLM-users had the weakest. The study suggests that AI tools may be useful to supplement critical thinking -- as Yahoo Japan aims to do first -- but used too often, and they’ll replace it instead. The company must grapple with this reality as it pushes for its goal of double-productivity in 2028.
Another January 2025 study suggested AI is a form of cognitive offloading, and a February study from Microsoft and Carnegie Melon University researchers found that “knowledge” workers with higher confidence in AI tools held lower confidence in their own critical thinking skills.
One study this year that examined experienced open-source developers found that they claimed to be faster using AI tools, but in reality were actually 19% slower.
Another major concern in the workplace itself is that many tasks will need to be doublechecked and fixed, potentially cancelling out gains or even having an overall negative effect in the short term. Some office employees exclaimed their disapproval on Reddit’s r/technology. One unnamed user said “forcing people to use a tool is wrong. They have to feel comfortable with using it to be effective, otherwise you will create a nasty expensive mess for yourself down the road.”
Other users expressed blatant disapproval, saying that AI was being pushed onto employees by leadership with no knowledge of how it slowed down progress.
Some disagreed, like one user who said that AI will start as a nuicance, before eventually becoming a gamechanger, and another, who argued that research shows employees are struggling and AI will help boost productivity. A paper published by The Upwork Research Institute revealed that 71% of full-time employees are burnt out and 65% report struggling with employer demands on their productivity. 81% of leadership acknowledge increasing demands on worker in the past year. C-suite leaders have high hopes for generative AI, with 96% saying they expect AI tools to increase overall productivity in their company.
On the flipside, 47% of employees using AI say “they have no idea how to achieve productivity gains their employers expect”, and 77% say these tools have “actually decreased their productivity and added to their workload.” The paper argues that while the new technology can be useful, it hasn’t been implemented or leveraged well with outdated systems and models.
The results can be linked to the polarizing environment around AI today. As the paper puts it, the best-case outcome “requires a fundamental shift in how we think about, structure, and evaluate work.”
The Chief Communications Officer of Microsoft, Judson Althoff , said it had saved more than $500 million in 2024 by automating call centers using AI -- this action also led to a loss of jobs in the thousands. Right now, Yahoo Japan isn’t cutting any jobs, but if its bet on a productivity-boost through AI support doesn’t pay off, it may consider job cuts instead.
So while AI holds unseen potential, its proper implementation is crucial to unlocking it. Yahoo Japan’s move will need to stand the test of time to produce tangible results. Whether they win their bet or not, AI is sure to completely transform the business landscape going forward.