Four Japanese AI startups pitch solutions to global problems at AI for Good Summit

Government backing and a focus on implementation

Yukio Teramura, Assistant Vice-Minister for International Affairs at Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, opened the session. He said AI is transforming areas including infrastructure, education, healthcare and communications, and pointed to the challenges of implementing it and using it over the long term.

According to Teramura, the Japanese government supports efforts to tackle social challenges with AI by encouraging industry participation and connecting international standards with practical implementation. He said the four featured companies use advanced technologies and services to address problems around the world, including in developing countries.

AironWorks and Dots for Africa: security and access

Taiga Inagaki, Sales Manager at AironWorks, presented an AI-based cyber security platform with three components: a simulation agent that tests employees with realistic simulated attacks, an educational agent that builds customised training, and a defence agent that scans employee inboxes for high-risk emails. He cited a case in which a financial employee transferred $25 million after a video call with a deepfake chief financial officer. "Our mission is protecting humans from AI-driven cyberattacks, so AI can serve humanity, not attackers," he said.

According to Inagaki, the platform is used in 20 countries, with more than 1,400 corporate clients and over 700,000 user IDs. He said it has cut workload by more than 85% and improved employee awareness by more than 200%, citing banking clients. The product is distributed through SoftBank's sales network, and the company aims to expand into human resources and insurance and to go public around 2030.

Carlos Oba, CEO, CIO and founder of Dots for Africa, described solar-powered digital hubs for rural villages in West Africa that lack reliable connectivity. The hubs can provide financing, video-based education, agricultural support and printing, and the model includes instalment payments for income-generating tools and a credit-scoring system built from data collected in offline communities.

Oba said the company has provided financing to more than 10,000 people, many of them using financial services for the first time, and that the instalment programme has a 97% collection rate. Dots for Africa operates in Benin and Senegal, which share a currency and French as a common language. It is also developing voice-based AI in local languages and has a partnership with Brother Industry to install printers in villages. Oba said nearly one million people have begun using its services and that revenue grows 45% each quarter.

KiAI and RevComm: trade and conversation data

Kazumasa Oba, CEO of KiAI, said he drew on 15 years at international organisations including the World Bank and the OECD, where he repeatedly saw small manufacturers with strong technologies but few ways to reach international markets. KiAI's product, Trst, works as an AI-powered global expansion agency that identifies target companies and verifies overseas partners through local verification networks. Oba said it found more than 114 target companies within eight days and described it as roughly 20 times more efficient than traditional consulting firms. He stressed that speed is not enough, so the platform combines AI with human verification on the ground.

Takeshi Aida, CEO of RevComm, presented Sequoia Meditech, a voice AI platform that analyses sales conversations held by phone, video call and in person. It looks at sentiment, speech rate, pauses, interruptions and filler words, transcribes conversations in full, and passes results into systems such as CRM platforms, Notion or Slack. Aida cited a securities brokerage sales representative who changed an aggressive style after the platform flagged it and saw a 15% increase in appointments booked and conversion rate. RevComm has more than 3,000 corporate clients globally and over 400 million recorded conversations.

What the session signals

The presentations covered different technologies and markets, but the companies shared an ambition to grow beyond Japan and to find partners that can support that expansion. The figures on clients, savings and growth were given by the companies themselves during the session.

The Japan Pavilion's wider purpose, as described in the source, is to showcase Japanese-developed technologies and explore how international cooperation can bring them to communities, organisations and markets worldwide.