Sansan Strengthens Career Business Centered on Eight Career Design, Makes Idoa a Group Company and Launches Eight AI Agent

Sansan, Inc., a provider of AX services that transform the way people work, announced that it will fully strengthen its career business centered on the professional recruiting service Eight Career Design. As the first step in this initiative, Sansan will acquire shares of Idoa Inc., a company operating a recruitment agency business, make it a group company, and rename it Eight Career Inc. Sansan will also launch a new feature called Eight AI Agent, which allows Eight users to consult about career-related matters. By combining scouting opportunities from companies with AI-powered career support, Sansan aims to create an environment where users can routinely reflect on their careers and broaden their future options. The background to this initiative is the major shift in corporate hiring needs driven by the adoption and use of generative AI. According to a Sansan survey, more than 70% of companies said their hiring policies have changed, and half of those companies said they now place greater emphasis on immediately effective talent and specialized professionals. Meanwhile, only about 10% of companies said they are sufficiently meeting the talent they seek through conventional hiring methods, making talent acquisition an urgent issue for many businesses. For business professionals, the spread of AI and changes in industrial structures have also increased uncertainty around their own careers. The same survey found that more than 70% of business professionals have felt career anxiety due to advances in AI. Since 2019, Sansan has offered Eight Career Design, a professional recruiting service based on Eight, its business card app used by more than four million people. The service has created new encounters between companies and business professionals by leveraging its strength in reaching latent job changers who are not actively considering a career move. By further evolving Eight Career Design, Sansan will build an environment where business professionals can engage with their careers and expand opportunities to meet companies, while continuously supporting each Eight user’s career development. Idoa is a company that operates management consulting services originating from recruitment, under the mission of contributing to social progress and development by supporting decision-making. Centered on recruitment support and organizational and HR consulting, Idoa has worked with corporate management teams to solve issues ranging from hiring high-class and executive talent to helping employees settle into and succeed within organizations after hiring. Through this group company integration, Sansan will combine Idoa’s expertise with the Eight Career Design platform to further strengthen career support for Eight users. In conjunction with joining the group, Idoa will change its name to Eight Career Inc. Eight AI Agent is a feature that enables users to consult with AI about their careers in a chat format within the Eight app. By simply answering questions from the AI agent, users can receive information such as estimated annual income, market value, and job listings based on their business card information and profile data on Eight. If users want to discuss matters in more detail, they can proceed directly to consult with a professional career advisor. The feature will first be offered as a beta version to some users and will be expanded gradually after further validation. While using Eight in their daily work, users will naturally gain opportunities to review their careers and learn about future possibilities. A key feature is that users can broaden their career options even before they are actively considering a job change. Sansan said Eight will continue to promote encounters between companies and individuals in pursuit of its mission to create innovation from encounters. Kenji Shiomi, General Manager of Sansan’s Eight Business Division, commented that Eight is an app used by more than four million business professionals, starting from the exchange of business cards. Eight Career Design was launched to meet a latent need identified through the service: people who are not considering an immediate job change but want to improve their careers. With Idoa joining the group and bringing recruitment support expertise, and with the launch of Eight AI Agent, Sansan has established a structure to provide broader career consultation and job change support. He said he is pleased that the company will be able to further support the career development of Eight users. Hiroshi Nakamura, Representative Director of Eight Career Inc., formerly Idoa Inc., commented that the company has addressed corporate recruitment challenges through management and organizational consulting originating from recruitment, under its mission of contributing to social progress and development by supporting decision-making. Because Eight is a business card app, it has strong affinity with careers and significant potential to create new encounters between companies and individuals. By joining the Sansan group, the company will return the expertise it has cultivated more broadly to society and support decision-making by more companies and business professionals. Eight Career Inc. is led by Representative Director Hiroshi Nakamura, has capital of 10 million yen, is located on the 16th floor of Akasaka Stargate Plaza, 2-3-5 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo, and was established on March 25, 2010. Its businesses include support and solutions for corporate talent recruitment, retention, and development, as well as media operations. Eight Career Design is a corporate service for the Eight business card app. It is a direct recruiting service that allows companies to approach candidates based on business card information, career profile data such as career summaries, and job-change intention levels. Companies can search and narrow down candidates from more than four million Eight users, Japan’s largest such user base, and approach them without missing changes in their willingness to change jobs. Sansan, Inc. provides AX services that transform the way people work under its mission of creating innovation from encounters. Its main services include the business database Sansan, the business card app Eight, the accounting AX service Bill One, the transaction management service Contract One, and the data quality management service Sansan Data Intelligence, offered in Japan and overseas.