Star Micronics, a manufacturer of machine tools and compact printers, adopts Notion and Notion AI as its company-wide knowledge base in Japan.

Notion Labs Japan LLC (Headquarters: Tokyo, General Manager Asia Pacific: Katsukiyo Nishi) announced that Star Micronics Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, President & CEO: Mamoru Sato, hereinafter referred to as Star Micronics) has adopted "Notion," an operating system where teams and AI agents collaborate to get work done, and "Notion AI" as its company-wide knowledge base in Japan, commencing usage across approximately 550 employees nationwide.

Star Micronics is revamping its information infrastructure, which all domestic employees use daily, to Notion. This initiative aims to promote organizational AI utilization in earnest, while also resolving issues such as fragmented documentation and the separation of AI and business workflows. By integrating AI into business operations, such as custom agents that automatically respond to internal inquiries and analysis of meeting content using AI meeting notes, the company is promoting its use across the entire organization to build a system that allows employees to dedicate more time to higher-value tasks.

Background of Adoption: From AI Utilization Separated from Business Flows to an AI Utilization Base Supporting Productivity Improvement and Enhanced Competitiveness

Under strong leadership from management, the company positioned AI utilization as the top priority for the information systems department, making a transition to a business infrastructure directly linked to company-wide productivity improvement and enhanced competitiveness indispensable.

Meanwhile, at the operational level, conventional generative AI was limited to a chat format and remained disconnected from business workflows, hindering its adoption. Information was also scattered across business systems, cloud storage, file servers, and local PCs, leading to time-consuming searches, handovers, and decision-making.

In the latter half of FY2025, Notion began trial use within the Information Systems Department. Its effectiveness was verified, and it was planned as an AI promotion policy. In early 2026, the decision was formally made for company-wide deployment in Japan. By consolidating information into Notion, which integrates documents, databases, tasks, and project management with AI, an environment where AI can be used within business operations was established. Deployment to approximately 550 employees nationwide began incrementally from the spring of the same year.

Key Factors for Adoption: An Integrated AI Base with Business Operations, Scalability Driven by the Front Lines

After comparing multiple products, the evaluation points that led to the adoption of Notion (Notion AI and Custom Agents) as the company-wide AI knowledge hub in Japan are primarily as follows:

AI is embedded within the business infrastructure that integrates documents, databases, tasks, and project management, allowing for the natural incorporation of AI utilization into business operations and promoting adoption at the front lines.

High-impact features such as AI Meeting Notes and Enterprise Search are included as standard, making it easier for front-line staff to experience the benefits from the initial stages of adoption.

Specialized AI for business can be developed and expanded internally by the front lines through custom agents and skills, enabling continuous expansion of use cases tailored to the challenges of each department.

Usage Status: Approximately 90% Monthly Active Users, AI Utilization Approximately 4 Times Higher Than Before

Currently, Notion is utilized as the company-wide information infrastructure for internal portals, project management, and the consolidation of meeting minutes and business knowledge. AI functions, such as automatic creation of meeting minutes using AI Meeting Notes and cross-sectional searches using Enterprise Search, are integrated into daily business workflows.

As a result, the monthly active user rate has reached approximately 90%, achieving high adoption and retention across the entire domestic company. Furthermore, AI utilization over 28 days (May 16 to June 12, 2026) recorded approximately four times that of conventional chat-based tools, indicating rapid AI adoption within the company.

Additionally, a "QA Help Desk" has been established to automatically respond to internal IT inquiries by referencing internal knowledge and past inquiry history, automating ticket creation and notification to operators when necessary.

Future Outlook: Aiming for a State Where Each Department Can Build and Operate Business-Specific AI at the Front Lines

To promote AI utilization in manufacturing and various departments through Notion, the company plans to proceed with the following initiatives:

Advancement of Knowledge Utilization and Technology Transfer

This includes responding to FAQs for work procedures, searching for failure examples, multilingualizing manuals, and operating a portal for receiving improvements and suggestions from the front lines in the manufacturing sector. Through knowledge sharing using Notion AI, the company aims to improve the efficiency of technology transfer and new employee training.

Promotion of Business Improvement through AI Utilization Assessment

AI utilization assessments will be conducted to gather information on front-line business challenges and improvement needs. Based on this, solutions utilizing Notion and Notion AI will be considered and implemented, promoting business improvements driven by the front lines.

Building and Operating Business-Specific AI by Each Department

The internal development of custom agents will be expanded to all departments, creating a system where each department can build and operate AI tailored to its business challenges.

Within the next year or so, the company aims for a 100% active rate of distributed licenses and is considering expanding the scope of users to include contract employees and temporary staff. Furthermore, a Notion utilization contest will be held internally to actively disseminate excellent front-line use cases throughout the company.

Star Micronics Co., Ltd.

Comment from Mr. Yasunori Sawai, General Manager of the Information Systems Department

Generative AI faces the challenge of not easily settling into front-line business workflows when introduced solely as a standalone chat tool. The reason we adopted Notion is our judgment that AI is integrated into the daily business itself, allowing knowledge utilization and improvement activities to be managed on the same platform.

Moving forward, including the use of custom agents, we will establish a system that reduces the burden of routine tasks such as inquiry response, information retrieval, and meeting operations, allowing us to allocate time to higher-value work.

Notion Labs Japan LLC

Comment from Katsukiyo Nishi, General Manager, Asia Pacific Region

We are extremely pleased that Star Micronics has adopted Notion and Notion AI as its AI utilization base for approximately 550 employees. The fact that they are consolidating information as a business foundation with Notion, integrating AI into daily operations, and promoting initiatives such as automated inquiry response with custom agents is, in my view, a pioneering example of transforming AI into organizational strength in the manufacturing industry. Notion will continue to support Star Micronics in expanding its AI utilization and achieving a better way of working.

About Star Micronics Co., Ltd.

Star Micronics is a manufacturer of machine tools and electronic devices headquartered in Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture. The company operates two main businesses: machine tools (automatic lathes) for producing precision parts used in fields such as automotive and medical, and business-use compact printers for issuing receipts and labels in stores and facilities. For both businesses, Star Micronics handles everything from planning and development to manufacturing, sales, and after-sales service in-house. As a global company where approximately 90% of sales are generated overseas, it supports the lives of various people through high-precision, high-quality manufacturing.

URL: https://star-m.jp/

About Notion

Notion is an operating system where teams and AI agents collaborate to get work done. By consolidating knowledge, projects, and AI tools all in one place, it creates an unprecedented workspace that can automate all sorts of tedious internal tasks. It supports everything from automatically assigning action items from meeting minutes to retrieving information with AI agents, managing tasks, initiating projects, and organizing inboxes. It is flexibly customizable for any team and possesses the power to support entire company operations, helping everyone focus on more essential work.

URL: https://www.notion.com/ja