Mercari Halves Annual Workload Equivalent to 250 Person-Days with Workato's Agentic AI Platform, Building Company-Wide AI Governance Foundation
Mercari has implemented Workato's Agentic AI platform to streamline back-office operations and establish a company-wide AI governance foundation. This initiative has successfully reduced workloads equivalent to 250 person-days annually, including halving the time spent on internal announcement tasks. The company aims to create an environment for safe AI utilization going forward.
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- 📰 Published: June 12, 2026 at 19:30
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June 11, 2026, Tokyo — Workato Inc. (Headquarters: Palo Alto, California, USA), a leader in enterprise automation, and its Japanese subsidiary Workato K.K. (Location: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Allan Teng; hereinafter referred to as Workato), today announced the release of a case study on the official website detailing how Mercari, Inc., operator of Japan's largest flea market app, utilizes Workato. Concurrently, Workato is launching an initiative to actively publish Agentic AI use cases on its Japanese website.
Three Structural Problems Faced by the Mercari Group
The Mercari Group is a large organization with over 2,000 employees, encompassing multiple companies including the flea market app "Mercari," fintech services like "Merpay" and "Mercoin," and its US operations. Behind its rapid business expansion, three structural problems were simultaneously intensifying. First, inefficiencies arising from manual management using spreadsheets and similar tools in back-office operations. Second, inefficiencies in internal announcement processes. Third, the proliferation of multiple automation tools, making it difficult to ensure governance and security.
"The more we tried to solve individual operational issues, the more the overall governance broke down." To resolve this paradox, Workato was adopted as the company-wide integrated platform, with the most critical criterion being "whether the field staff could continue to use it autonomously while maintaining governance." Currently, over 200 recipes are in operation, and the scale has grown to over 70,000 automated tasks.
Key Achievement: Halving Annual Workload of 250 Person-Days with Slack Smart Announcements
In the finance domain, the automation of uploading full-bank format files generated in NetSuite to the internet banking system has achieved a reduction of 80 person-days in workload annually.
"Slack Smart Announcements," uniquely built on the foundation of Workbot for Slack, is a custom-developed tool to automate the distribution, reminders, and response management of internal announcements. After implementation, it became possible to set even the timing for automatic reminders to non-respondents, eliminating the need for staff to compile data in spreadsheets and send direct messages manually. For HR evaluation announcements involving 2,000 employees, which previously consumed approximately 250 person-days annually, the company has succeeded in reducing the workload for announcement tasks by more than half.
"The creation of Slack Smart Announcements was a major step forward in providing a workload reduction tool that a wide range of people can use. This has allowed us to reduce the endless effort previously required for reminders and management."
Tsubasa Tanaka / Mercari, Inc. Digital Center of Excellence / Mercari Mercari, Inc. Corporate IT
Agentic AI Utilization and the MCP Gateway Concept
Furthermore, by introducing Workato Genie (an AI agent that autonomously judges and executes within guardrails using LLMs), Mercari has built a system where employees can simply ask on Slack, "What is the response rate for this department?", and the AI will instantly provide an answer by referencing existing databases. This also contributes to reducing the workload for developers.
Looking ahead, Mercari plans to leverage Workato as an MCP Gateway, aiming to realize an environment where "all employees can safely use AI while maintaining governance." For those who wish to learn more about how technical and governance challenges were overcome, please refer to the full case study.
"Workato is not just an automation tool; it is the foundation for us to become an AI-Native organization. Creating an environment where the field staff can safely use AI while maintaining governance – that is the role of our IT department, and Workato is the core that supports its realization."
Tomoyuki Ohno / Mercari, Inc. Digital Center of Excellence
Regarding the Active Publication of Agentic AI Use Cases
While Workato has previously published customer case studies both domestically and internationally on its website, the expansion of the platform's functionalities and AI application areas has led to an increasing number of cases where the latest utilization trends and the reasons customers adopted Workato are not fully conveyed. Additionally, there were no published cases of "Agentic AI," failing to communicate the evolution of automation driven by rapid AI advancements in recent years.
Moving forward, Workato will focus on refreshing and expanding its case study content, particularly highlighting Agentic AI use cases, to provide more specific and continuous information on how customers are tackling their challenges and achieving results. The aim is to help Japanese companies realize the value of Workato by showcasing the potential of business transformation through the combination of AI and automation.
Published case studies can be viewed on the website in both HTML and PDF formats. Furthermore, for new interviews starting from now, footage from the interviews will be recorded and sequentially released as YouTube videos.
How to Access Case Study Content
The Mercari implementation case study can be viewed in a simplified (HTML) and detailed (PDF) version from the following URLs:
https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/customers/mercari/?utm_source=prtimes
See a list of customer case studies here:
https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/customers/?utm_source=prtimes
About Workato
Workato is a leader in enterprise automation, transforming technology complexity into business opportunities. It connects and integrates enterprise data, processes, applications, and experiences to drive business growth. Its AI-powered platform automates complex workflows in real-time, enhancing efficiency and agility. Workato is also a leading provider of "Enterprise MCP," a foundation for enabling AI to function as an AI worker collaborating with humans, rather than just a work support tool. Currently, over 12,000 global companies have adopted Workato.
https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/
Contact Information for This Matter:
Workato K.K. Marketing Department
Email: mktg-japan@workato.com
Address: 9F, Grantokyo South Tower, 1-9-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6690, Japan
Web: https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/
Keywords:
Three Structural Problems Faced by the Mercari Group
The Mercari Group is a large organization with over 2,000 employees, encompassing multiple companies including the flea market app "Mercari," fintech services like "Merpay" and "Mercoin," and its US operations. Behind its rapid business expansion, three structural problems were simultaneously intensifying. First, inefficiencies arising from manual management using spreadsheets and similar tools in back-office operations. Second, inefficiencies in internal announcement processes. Third, the proliferation of multiple automation tools, making it difficult to ensure governance and security.
"The more we tried to solve individual operational issues, the more the overall governance broke down." To resolve this paradox, Workato was adopted as the company-wide integrated platform, with the most critical criterion being "whether the field staff could continue to use it autonomously while maintaining governance." Currently, over 200 recipes are in operation, and the scale has grown to over 70,000 automated tasks.
Key Achievement: Halving Annual Workload of 250 Person-Days with Slack Smart Announcements
In the finance domain, the automation of uploading full-bank format files generated in NetSuite to the internet banking system has achieved a reduction of 80 person-days in workload annually.
"Slack Smart Announcements," uniquely built on the foundation of Workbot for Slack, is a custom-developed tool to automate the distribution, reminders, and response management of internal announcements. After implementation, it became possible to set even the timing for automatic reminders to non-respondents, eliminating the need for staff to compile data in spreadsheets and send direct messages manually. For HR evaluation announcements involving 2,000 employees, which previously consumed approximately 250 person-days annually, the company has succeeded in reducing the workload for announcement tasks by more than half.
"The creation of Slack Smart Announcements was a major step forward in providing a workload reduction tool that a wide range of people can use. This has allowed us to reduce the endless effort previously required for reminders and management."
Tsubasa Tanaka / Mercari, Inc. Digital Center of Excellence / Mercari Mercari, Inc. Corporate IT
Agentic AI Utilization and the MCP Gateway Concept
Furthermore, by introducing Workato Genie (an AI agent that autonomously judges and executes within guardrails using LLMs), Mercari has built a system where employees can simply ask on Slack, "What is the response rate for this department?", and the AI will instantly provide an answer by referencing existing databases. This also contributes to reducing the workload for developers.
Looking ahead, Mercari plans to leverage Workato as an MCP Gateway, aiming to realize an environment where "all employees can safely use AI while maintaining governance." For those who wish to learn more about how technical and governance challenges were overcome, please refer to the full case study.
"Workato is not just an automation tool; it is the foundation for us to become an AI-Native organization. Creating an environment where the field staff can safely use AI while maintaining governance – that is the role of our IT department, and Workato is the core that supports its realization."
Tomoyuki Ohno / Mercari, Inc. Digital Center of Excellence
Regarding the Active Publication of Agentic AI Use Cases
While Workato has previously published customer case studies both domestically and internationally on its website, the expansion of the platform's functionalities and AI application areas has led to an increasing number of cases where the latest utilization trends and the reasons customers adopted Workato are not fully conveyed. Additionally, there were no published cases of "Agentic AI," failing to communicate the evolution of automation driven by rapid AI advancements in recent years.
Moving forward, Workato will focus on refreshing and expanding its case study content, particularly highlighting Agentic AI use cases, to provide more specific and continuous information on how customers are tackling their challenges and achieving results. The aim is to help Japanese companies realize the value of Workato by showcasing the potential of business transformation through the combination of AI and automation.
Published case studies can be viewed on the website in both HTML and PDF formats. Furthermore, for new interviews starting from now, footage from the interviews will be recorded and sequentially released as YouTube videos.
How to Access Case Study Content
The Mercari implementation case study can be viewed in a simplified (HTML) and detailed (PDF) version from the following URLs:
https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/customers/mercari/?utm_source=prtimes
See a list of customer case studies here:
https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/customers/?utm_source=prtimes
About Workato
Workato is a leader in enterprise automation, transforming technology complexity into business opportunities. It connects and integrates enterprise data, processes, applications, and experiences to drive business growth. Its AI-powered platform automates complex workflows in real-time, enhancing efficiency and agility. Workato is also a leading provider of "Enterprise MCP," a foundation for enabling AI to function as an AI worker collaborating with humans, rather than just a work support tool. Currently, over 12,000 global companies have adopted Workato.
https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/
Contact Information for This Matter:
Workato K.K. Marketing Department
Email: mktg-japan@workato.com
Address: 9F, Grantokyo South Tower, 1-9-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6690, Japan
Web: https://www.workato.com/ja-jp/
Keywords:
FAQ
What problems did Mercari solve with Workato?
They addressed inefficiencies in back-office operations, complexity in internal announcement tasks, and governance/security issues arising from the proliferation of multiple tools.
How much annual workload reduction was achieved with Workato?
Primarily through internal announcement tasks, they succeeded in reducing the workload by approximately 250 person-days annually.
What specific functionality does Agentic AI offer?
It's an AI agent where LLMs autonomously judge and execute, providing instant answers by referencing existing databases in response to Slack queries.
What is Mercari's future AI utilization policy?
They aim to become an AI-Native organization by building an environment on the Workato platform where all employees can safely use AI while maintaining governance.
What kind of company is Workato?
Workato provides an agentic orchestration platform that connects and integrates enterprise data, processes, and applications to support business growth.