Emily. Assistant Survey Finds 66.7% of Japanese Companies See Strong Results from AI in U.S. Operations, Yet Human Support Remains Essential

COEL, Inc. (Headquarters: California, U.S.; CEO: Yusuke Matsuo), provider of the online assistant service “Emily. Assistant,” has released the third installment of its survey on Japanese companies’ expansion into the U.S. This survey focuses on AI adoption and was conducted among 111 executives, officers, business managers, and staff members at Japanese companies with experience in U.S. business operations. The survey was conducted to clarify how AI is being used in U.S. operations, as many companies are introducing AI tools to improve operational efficiency and quality. According to the results, 66.7% of respondents said they had “actively used AI and achieved sufficient results” in their U.S. business operations. AI-driven efficiency gains were most commonly seen in foundational operational areas such as information gathering and research, accounting, payments and invoice management, and scheduling and meeting coordination. At the same time, the top three tasks that respondents said could be replaced or made more efficient by AI were exactly the same as the top three tasks where they felt human or specialist support was still necessary. These were scheduling and meeting coordination, information gathering and research, and accounting, payments and invoice management. This suggests that, at present, the same operational tasks often require both AI and human involvement. Regarding challenges in AI adoption, 76.2% of respondents said AI is limited in the situations it can handle, while 44.8% said they spend time creating prompts and verifying or correcting AI outputs. The findings indicate that although AI contributes to operational efficiency, it has not yet replaced entire workflows. In practice, employees still need to review and correct AI output before use, creating additional workload for personnel responsible for core business tasks. Yusuke Matsuo, representative of COEL, Inc., commented that the most interesting point is the overlap between the tasks AI can streamline and the tasks that still require human support. While AI delivers efficiency gains, human involvement remains necessary even within the same business processes. He noted that companies should not see AI merely as an efficiency tool, but should redesign operations around which tasks should be assigned to AI and where human judgment or practical execution should be combined. Matsuo also referenced the second installment of the company’s survey on Japanese companies’ U.S. expansion, in which more than 90% of respondents showed interest in using external resources. This suggests growing demand for operating models that combine AI and human talent. Going forward, companies will need to redesign practical operations based on the assumption that AI and humans complement each other. COEL also offers a downloadable “Online Assistant Utilization Guide,” a practical guidebook addressing challenges revealed by the survey, such as back-office burdens and resource shortages faced by Japanese companies expanding into the U.S. Download URL: https://blog.emilyassistant.com/guidebook-emilyassistant/ Emily. Assistant is a Japanese-English online assistant service specialized for the U.S. market. Its bilingual operations team, based in both the U.S. and Japan, supports Japanese companies’ overseas expansion by applying local expertise to practical business operations. The service provides flexible support for both daily tasks and specialized project work according to each company’s business phase and challenges, helping improve execution capabilities and support sustainable growth in overseas operations.