Towards a New Standard in the AI Era

Our company supports April Dream, a project to turn April 1st into a day for sharing dreams. This press release is the dream of A&People, Inc.

A&People, Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Machiko Asai) aims to evolve Japan's communication to be concise and clear, in line with international standards, and to realize the fair and just dissemination of information through the popularization of plain language.

■ Background of the Dream

For 28 years, our company has provided translation and documentation services with the mission of "contributing to our customers and society through services that facilitate global communication." In particular, we specialize in IR translation using Plain English, which is easy for native English speakers to read and has high appeal.

Although Plain English is already a standard in Europe and the United States, its concept has not been sufficiently widespread in Japan. Therefore, for about 20 years, in parallel with our translation business, we have been conducting promotional activities for public relations and IR personnel of Japanese companies.

In the course of these activities, a challenge became apparent. Japanese is a difficult language, and direct translation of the original text often resulted in English that was difficult to understand or lacked appeal. Our company has spent many years verifying how to solve this problem.

However, in recent years, advances in AI have made translation smoother and more natural. Nevertheless, there are still complex Japanese expressions that even AI cannot process accurately.

We have come to the conclusion that "it is possible to achieve almost perfect English translations not by making them easier to understand at the translation stage, but by preparing the original Japanese text itself to be easy to understand." In other words, by writing Japanese information dissemination in accordance with the international standard of Plain Japanese, affinity with AI will increase, and output in Plain English can be realized.

Based on this idea, our company established the "Japan Plain Language Association," Japan's first organization for the popularization of plain language, and is earnestly promoting the spread of Plain Japanese.

Plain language is a communication method designed so that the reader can "easily find necessary information, understand it immediately, and act on it." It is also characterized by clarifying the subject and intent, making it clear "who is communicating what," and encouraging the sender to take responsibility for conveying their thoughts.

In today's world overflowing with information, the importance of clear and fair information dissemination is increasing. Plain language became an ISO international standard in 2023, setting a new global standard for information dissemination.

Its popularization in Japan is still a work in progress. However, if plain language spreads, a society where everyone can understand correctly can be realized. And it is also a society where each sender takes responsibility for conveying their own thoughts.

We will continue to take on challenges toward that future.

■ Past Initiatives

• Co-hosted "English IR Seminars" for public relations and IR personnel of Japanese companies with the Japan Investor Relations Association (2000–)

• Conducted numerous plain language seminars for government agencies, industry organizations, companies, and universities, including the Financial Services Agency, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange

• Serving as the Japan representative for Clarity (a plain language promotion organization with members in 65 countries worldwide) (2018–)

• Established the "Japan Plain Language Association," a plain language popularization organization (2019–)

• Participated in standardization activities as a domestic committee member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (2019–)

• Held Japan's first international conference on plain language (2022)

• Published a book (2024)

• Developed the writing tool "Nikola" (2025–)
  -Diagnoses the readability of Japanese based on plain language indicators
  -Realizes AI-powered rewriting and English translation in one stop

■ Future Initiatives

• Further functional enhancement of the writing tool "Nikola"

• Efforts to make plain language a JIS standard

• Creation of a Plain Japanese proficiency test

• Provision of Plain Japanese training

• Support for the organizational introduction and establishment of Plain Japanese

Plain Japanese is characterized by its high affinity with AI translation because its subject is clear and its structure is organized. By disseminating information in Plain Japanese, translation accuracy will greatly improve, and information dissemination from Japan to the world will evolve to be faster and more accurate.

Even as technology evolves, our company's philosophy of "contributing to our customers and society through services that facilitate global communication" remains unchanged.

That the receiver can understand without hesitation.
That the sender takes responsibility for communicating in their own words.
And that it is delivered correctly across language barriers.

Through its realization, we will spread transparent and reliable communication in society.