Make gratitude easier to convey! We want employee gifts to become the norm in Japanese workplaces.
Matabi Technologies Inc., operator of the AMPGIFT employee gift platform, aims to establish employee gifts as a standard practice in Japanese workplaces, citing their proven positive impact on employee engagement globally and domestically. The company is developing AI agents to personalize gift selection, addressing the challenges of individual preferences, harassment considerations, and budget management, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of gratitude expressed through gifts.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: April 1, 2026 at 22:00
- 🔍 Collected: April 1, 2026 at 16:47
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 17, 2026 at 03:36 (370h 48m after Collected)
Our company supports April Dream, which aims to make April 1st a day to announce dreams. This press release is a dream of Matabi Technologies Inc.
Matabi Technologies Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Chikara Ueno), which develops and operates AMPGIFT, an employee gift proxy platform, declares its April Dream to establish employee gifts as a norm in Japanese workplaces.
Globally, Employee Gifts are Established as a Means of Human Capital Investment
In Europe and the United States, the culture and HR policies of giving gifts to employees at milestones such as awards, birthdays, work anniversaries, and achievement of milestones are widely prevalent. In the US, the related market exceeds 10 trillion yen, and global companies including GAFAM adopt employee gifts as a human resource strategy.
Unlike highly liquid rewards such as cash or gift certificates, gifts have the characteristic of making feelings of gratitude and recognition more likely to be retained as memories due to the effect of mental accounting, as shown by multiple behavioral economics studies.
Domestically, the Presence or Absence of Gift Experience Makes a Clear Difference in Engagement
In Japan, opportunities to receive gifts at work are still limited, with the exception of bouquets at retirement or long-service awards in 10-year increments. However, a survey conducted by our company in December 2025 targeting 575 office workers confirmed a difference in engagement metrics depending on whether they had received a gift at work.
In the item 'I feel my work is appropriately recognized,' 66.0% of those with gift-receiving experience responded positively, compared to only 32.2% of those without experience, showing a difference of approximately twofold. In each of the items 'I feel valued by the company,' 'I feel proud of the company,' and 'I want to take on a role beyond what is expected,' a difference of more than 30 points was observed between the two groups.
While this survey shows a correlation and does not directly prove that gifts improve engagement, it suggests that the presence or absence of initiatives to express gratitude in a tangible form is related to employees' perceptions of the company.
The survey release distributed in February 2026 can be found here
R&D of AI Agents for Large-Scale Personalization
To maximize the effectiveness of employee gifts, individually optimized selection is required, taking into account the recipient's attributes, situation, and preferences. However, simultaneously meeting operational requirements such as harassment considerations and budget management while selecting appropriate gifts for each individual places a significant burden on the person in charge. While existing catalog gifts can ensure fairness, they are uniform, and there are many cases where recipients do not choose anything before the expiration date, posing challenges in terms of cost and experience.
To solve this problem, our company operates the employee gift proxy service "AMPGIFT", which utilizes professional knowledge and AI. This time, under the framework of the ICT Startup League (adopted in FY2025) by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' "Startup Creation Type Germinative Research and Development Support Project," we conducted research and development of a gift selection system utilizing AI agents here.
Multiple AI agents collaborate, including recipient persona analysis, gift candidate selection, and harassment checks, to generate a personalized gift collection for each individual based on information such as gender, age, occupation, and budget. Furthermore, by adopting a Human in the Loop structure where experts provide feedback and AI re-selects, the system can reflect subtle nuances that AI alone might not fully grasp.
Our company will continue to develop and promote services, including AI research and development, with the aim of creating a future where utilizing gifts as a means of expressing gratitude to employees becomes a natural choice in Japanese workplaces.
About AMPGIFT
AMPGIFT is an employee gift proxy platform.
【Service Features】
Individual Selection by Professionals and AI: Gift selection professionals collaborate with AI to carefully select products tailored to each individual. This enables large-scale personalized responses.
99% Acceptance Rate: The system allows employees to choose their favorite from six individually selected gift candidates, achieving a 99% acceptance rate. There are no initial costs or minimum order quantities, and no fees are incurred if a gift is not accepted, ensuring no wasted budget.
Effortless Operation: By simply setting the target recipients and budget, the service provides end-to-end support from selection to shipping. Centralized dashboard management and automatic notification functions to prevent forgotten celebrations reduce the burden on HR and general affairs personnel.
Contact Regarding This Matter
For service introduction, document requests, or participation in AI agent research and development/demonstration, please contact us below.
Company Name: Matabi Technologies Inc.
Contact: hello@ampgift.co
Service Site: https://www.ampgift.co/
Corporate Site: https://matabi-tech.com/