Jin Ohno, Representative of Branding Agency crack, Gives Presentation at GUGA, a Leading Generative AI Platform in Japan

On Tuesday, May 20, 2026, Jin Ohno, representative of crack Inc. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo), a branding agency that expresses corporate uniqueness and philosophy through art and music, delivered a lecture at the Japan Generative AI Utilization Promotion Association (GUGA).

In an unusual lecture for the authoritative organization GUGA, which leads the social implementation of AI in Japan, the head of a 'branding agency'—not an AI company—spoke about the 'challenges' in the social implementation of AI agents, receiving a significant response from the audience.

■ A completely different industry: Where do they intersect?

crack Inc. is a branding agency with the goal of 'having zero employees who cannot boast about their own company.' They express corporate mission, vision, and values through art, music, and uniform design, rather than just words. By collaborating with nearly 200 artists domestically and internationally, they have visualized the 'unconscious value' held by companies.

On the other hand, GUGA (Chaired by Satoshi Iibata) is an authoritative organization engaged in activities with the mission of 'implementing generative AI into society,' with prominent experts such as former Microsoft executive Madoka Sawa serving as directors.

The generative AI-related qualification 'Generative AI Passport,' hosted by GUGA, saw over 44,000 annual examinees in 2025, and a record-breaking 28,415 people took the exam in February 2026, leading the construction of Japan's AI infrastructure.

■ Pointing out AI's 'weakness'

In this lecture, Ohno dared to talk about 'human sensibility.'

Humans have various emotions, and the 'unique know-how' possessed by top-performing personnel and veteran employees is strongly reflected by this sensibility.

However, in most companies, such know-how is not codified, leading to the problem where it cannot be learned by AI just by reading documents. In other words, 'codifying know-how for AI to learn' is extremely difficult and can be called a 'weakness' of AI. Naturally, this has become a 'challenge' for developers.

However, major overseas research institutions, including the University of California, have also suggested that 'this uncodified knowledge and know-how will determine the AI competitiveness of companies in the future.'

■ Why did the organization leading AI social implementation invite a 'branding agency' head to speak?

As mentioned above, crack has visualized 'corporate appeal that even employees were unaware of' and 'the uncodified judgment criteria held by top performers' through our branding business.

In this lecture, we explained the approach of applying the 'value visualization' technology cultivated in the branding field to the design of AI skill agents. We presented a 'future vision' of implementing the unique knowledge and judgment criteria held by companies as 'skills' that AI agents can reproduce.

This was realized due to the shared recognition of both parties that the technology to implement 'uncodified unique value' and 'human-like judgment criteria' held by companies will be the next generation's competitive advantage.

On the stage of GUGA, where AI experts and advanced companies gather, this lecture, which provided a new perspective on the fusion of branding and AI agents, was a great success, drawing so much interest that the Q&A session continued well past the scheduled time.

■ crack begins 'AI development consulting services'

We have begun consulting services applying the branding know-how possessed by crack (Jin Ohno) to AI development.