In a Mainichi Shimbun questionnaire survey of 121 major domestic companies on their usage of artificial intelligence (AI), slightly under 50% of respondents said that they have already introduced AI for some operations. Including companies with concrete plans to introduce AI going forward, the total comes to almost 70%. Amid the increasingly severe labor shortage and calls to rectify long working hours, it looks like AI will be introduced more and more to raise operational efficiency in the future. An expert predicts that “some work that has traditionally been performed by people will be done by AI instead.”

This survey was performed in tandem with Mainichi Shimbun’s December 2017 questionnaire survey of 121 major companies on the economy. Asked if their company has already introduced AI to some operations, a total of 47% said “yes,” with 33 companies (27%) saying “we have already introduced AI to some operations and we plan to introduce it to more” and 24 companies (20%) saying “we have already introduced AI to some operations.”

A total of 24 companies (20%) said they “have concrete plans to introduce AI” for some operations. The remaining companies either gave no answer or said “other” or “no plans to introduce AI.” (Abridged)