freee Announces New Sessions and Experience Zones for freee Integrated World 2026

freee K.K. announced new sessions and on-site experience zones for “freee Integrated World 2026,” a festival focused on management, back-office operations, and AI, to be held on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. As AI adoption accelerates in business, companies are being asked to go beyond simply introducing tools and fundamentally update their organizations and workflows. The event will feature leaders from various industries and offer sessions exploring concrete approaches for embedding AI into frontline operations and evolving corporate management. A special dialogue session will feature Takahiro Yamauchi, who became president and representative director of CyberAgent in December 2025, alongside freee founder and CEO Daisuke Sasaki. From their different perspectives as a successor to a major venture and a company founder, they will discuss fundamental questions such as what it means to be a president and what management truly entails. Under the theme of “Back Office × AI,” the event will address challenges such as AI failing to take root in the workplace and uncertainty over where to begin. Sessions will share real-world experiences and practical steps that participants can apply immediately. Topics include how CyberAgent and freee encourage employees to proactively use AI, how they build governance that enables safe experimentation, and how AI expert Masahiro Chaen will examine the impact of freee’s MCP (Model Context Protocol) on back-office operations from an external perspective. Demonstrations and discussions will show a future in which manual entry and aggregation work can be reduced without programming. A special dialogue between Akari Inc. and freee will also discuss DX / AX strategies that do not force changes on frontline operations, aiming to help small and medium-sized businesses facing labor shortages improve productivity despite AI adoption rates of only around 5%. The event will also cover the front lines of management transformation for next-generation small businesses. A NewsPicks-produced session will bring together Waseda Business School professor Akie Iriyama and Kurashicom representative Kohei Aoki to discuss how far small businesses can grow through “asset-light management.” Another session will feature two successors who led century-old businesses through crises and company-wide transformation. “freee Integrated World 2026” will take place from 11:00 to 18:30 on June 16, 2026, at Shinjuku Sumitomo Building Sankaku Hiroba and Shinjuku Sumitomo Hall, with some sessions streamed online. Participation is free with advance registration. freee’s mission is to “make small businesses the leading players in the world,” and it aims to provide an integrated management platform that enables anyone to manage a business freely.