Demand
Japanese demand comes from operator shortages, new harassment rules and Japanese-language speech AI
Japan's call centres cannot hire enough operators. Since October 2026, employers must protect staff from abusive customers. Both encourage AI use, although customer-facing adoption remains early.
Operator shortages keep outsourcing and tools growing
Yano Research Institute put call centre services at ¥1.0517 trillion in FY2024, down 3.5% as pandemic-era public sector projects ended. Contact centre products and services grew 5.0% to ¥419.0 billion. Yano expects structural operator shortages across companies of every size to deepen, moving more tasks into systems.
Generative AI reaches one in five call centres
Yano's September 2025 to March 2026 survey found 19.0% using generative AI and 30.0% planning to. Order-taking centres led at 35.3%; over half with 99 seats or fewer had no plans. Yano and Genesys's コールセンター白書2025 (kōru sentā hakusho, Call Centre White Paper, November 2025) webinar cite hallucination risk as limiting customer-facing adoption.
National harassment rules began on 1 October 2026
Tokyo's カスハラ (kasuhara, customer harassment) prevention ordinance, Japan's first, began on 1 April 2025 without penalties. National prevention measures became mandatory on 1 October 2026. The labour ministry's 26 February 2026 guideline lists ten measures, including consultation desks and set responses to malicious cases, covering phone calls.
Banks and telecoms deploy phone AI agents
MUFG Bank routes toll-free calls using NTT Docomo Business's generative AI agent after a 2024 trial (announced December 2025). Docomo SMTB Net Bank deployed Amazon Connect Customer AI agents on phone and chat in September 2026. SoftBank became Sierra's exclusive Japan agent in July 2026; its LINEMO trial raised resolution from 83% to 97%.
Japanese speech recognition has its own market
ITR put Japanese speech recognition at ¥15.0 billion in FY2023, up 21.0%, forecasting over ¥30 billion in FY2028 (September 2024). PKSHA's engine serves over 2,000 companies; its API opened on 1 August 2026 with an on-premises option. Advanced Media's AmiVoice served 569 call centre companies at 31 March 2025.
BPOs are both buyers and sales channels
Yano sees outsourcing demand growing as companies reassign staff. Osaka BPO Rococo replaced its on-premises PBX with NiCE CXone through CTC and Aisan Information Systems, cutting configuration change costs about 90% (October 2026). Adish resells Fin with outsourced operations as BPaaS. Cresta works with large Japanese BPO and e-commerce companies.
Who sells it in Japan
Who sells customer service and contact centre AI in Japan now
Foreign CRM, CCaaS and communications vendors run Japanese subsidiaries with named leaders, often selling through telecoms and SIs. PKSHA and Advanced Media have their own Japanese speech recognition engines.
| Company | What it sells | In Japan | Japan leader (public record) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agentforce AI agents across CRM, marketing and customer service; Fin (formerly Intercom) | 株式会社セールスフォース・ジャパン (Salesforce Japan); Agentforce launched in Japan in 2025; Adish has resold Fin and Intercom Suite in Japan since May 2026 | Shinichi Koide (小出伸一), Representative Director, Chairman and President, Salesforce Japan (January 2026) | |
| Customer service software and help desk platform | Tokyo subsidiary since 2013, Chuo-ku; about 80 sales, consulting and customer success staff (July 2025); manufacturing, retail, transport and travel customers | Taro Mori (森太郎), 代表執行役社長 (daihyō shikkōyaku shachō, Representative Executive Officer and President), July 2025 | |
| Genesys Cloud contact centre platform: AI, voice, digital and workforce engagement management | ジェネシスクラウドサービス株式会社 (Genesys Cloud Services KK), Toranomon, Tokyo; Genesys Cloud ISMAP listing, 31 August 2026, covers Tokyo and Osaka regions | ポール・伊藤・リッチー (Paul Ito Richey), President and Representative Director; Genesys Japan president since January 2020 | |
| CXone cloud contact centre platform; Cognigy AI agents acquisition agreed | ナイスジャパン株式会社 (NICE Japan), Akasaka, Tokyo; CTC and Aisan Information Systems implemented CXone at Osaka BPO Rococo (October 2026) | Olivier Georlette, NICE Japan President since 1 January 2023; still named July 2025 | |
| Cloud voice and messaging APIs for building contact centre systems | Twilio Japan合同会社 (GK, gōdō gaisha), August 2019; KDDI Web Communications became gold resale and SI partner (2019) | Atsushi Kubo (久保敦), Representative Executive Officer and President (BUSINESS NETWORK, August 2025) | |
| AI calling, meetings and contact centre platform with proprietary speech recognition | Dialpad Japan株式会社; in Japan since 2016; SoftBank partner since 2022; launched real-time Japanese transcription and agent coaching with SoftBank in January 2026 | Takeshi Otsuki (大槻剛士), Japan Country Manager (January 2026) | |
| AI for contact centres, used by United Airlines, CVS Health and Marriott | Cresta AI合同会社 (gōdō gaisha), Marunouchi, Tokyo, July 2026; working with large Japanese BPO and e-commerce firms, none named | Hajime (Jim) Tamura (田村元), VP and Japan Country Manager, joined September 2026 | |
| PKSHA VoiceAgent, ChatAgent, FAQ and Speech Insight, using proprietary Japanese speech recognition | Tokyo AI company; over 2,000 speech-engine users; speech API, 1 August 2026; Voice KIT, August 2026; Virtualex partnership, February 2026 | Japanese company, no country manager seat | |
| MiiTel voice analysis AI for phones, call centres, meetings and retail | Japanese startup; ¥3.35B Series B first close, July 2026; ¥8.6B total raised; over 3,000 business customers | Japanese company, no country manager seat | |
| AmiVoice Communication Suite: call centre speech recognition, LLM summaries and CRM links | Japanese listed company; 569 call centre customers, 82,779 cumulative licences at 31 March 2025; annual group revenue ¥6.67B | Japanese company, no country manager seat |
Japanese telecoms resell several foreign products: SoftBank sells Sierra and Dialpad, and KDDI Web Communications resells Twilio.
Coming to Japan
Companies building a Japan team
These companies have a dated public Japan signal in 2025 or 2026 and are still building their Japan team; most have no named Japan head.
| Company and backers | What it sells | Public signal |
|---|---|---|
GreenoaksSequoiaUS$350M round, September 2025 | Customer service conversational AI; about 40% of Fortune 50 users per SoftBank | Acquired Tokyo enterprise AI company OPERA TECH, 27 March 2026; exclusive SoftBank Japan sales agreement, 14 July 2026. Listed 14 Tokyo roles, 3 November 2026; no Japan head named. |
a16zSequoia CapitalSeries D, February 2026 | Voice AI models and voice agents, including for customer support | ElevenLabs Japan G.K. incorporated March 2025, launched April 2025. Account Executive - Japan posted 16 October 2026. No successor to Hajime (Jim) Tamura found on 3 November 2026. |
| Licensed carrier: proprietary network, voice, messaging and infrastructure for real-time AI agents | Founding Account Executive, Japan (Tokyo) and Forward Deployed Engineer (Japan) roles listed on its Greenhouse board on 3 November 2026. | |
| Speech-to-text and text-to-speech APIs, with Japanese models | Sales Country Leader (Japan) listed on an aggregator, 17 July 2026. An AWS Japan solutions architect published a May 2026 guide to Deepgram's Japanese models inside Amazon Connect. | |
US$505M raised in September 2026 | Enterprise AI agents connecting legacy systems, mainly for finance | Wonderful AI 株式会社: Satoshi Hosoi, 代表執行役社長 (daihyō shikkōyaku shachō, President), from 2026; previously Microsoft Japan CTO and CEO of Pioneer's Mobility Services Company. |
| AI platform for customer support and product teams | DevRev Japan合同会社 set up on 18 September 2025, with 河南敏 as head of Japan business, sales partners Classmethod and Synthesy, and named customers Kokuyo, Hokugin Software and Macnica. | |
| UK cloud contact centre platform | Named 米田匡克 (Yoneda) Japan Country Manager and head of Content Guru株式会社 on 23 March 2026; plans to sell through Japanese BPOs and SIs, none named. |
Only public signals are listed: job ads, company registrations, partner announcements and press. A company on this list has not told us it is entering Japan, and none of them is named here as a client.
Who our clients are backed by
Investors behind companies we have worked with.
Venture and private equity firms behind clients we have run Japan searches for. Under each firm is the client it backs. These firms are not our clients and have not endorsed us.
Case studies
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How this page was researched. We produced this page with AI under Murray Clarke's direction. Every figure links to its original source, and the page was checked against those sources on 3 November 2026. Most sources are Yano Research Institute and ITR releases, labour ministry material and legal commentary on the customer harassment rules, vendor, bank and telecom press releases on PR TIMES and company sites, Impress media articles and Japan job postings. Murray Clarke is accountable for what the page says. If you find an error, tell us at hello@aspiringpartners.jp and we will correct it.
Aspiring Partners K.K. Licensed by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for fee-charging employment placement, licence 13-ユ-318925. Company names on this page describe the Japanese market and are not clients unless we say so. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or investment advice. aspiringpartners.jp