AIエージェント元年: ManAIgement series maps 9 business functions

The series is organized by function rather than by technology, and that choice carries the argument. Each installment pairs a user company with the operational problem that function faces — KOSÉ pushing customer-support connection to 100%, Mitsubishi Corporation using accumulated legal data to spot blind spots in contracts and investments, Fujitsu integrating financial data to read performance ahead of the curve. Read together, they suggest AI adoption is advancing unevenly across departments rather than arriving as a single company-wide switch.

The framing of 2026 as the first year of AI agents rests on a distinction the series makes early: agents understand a task's goal and act on their own, which is a different proposition from automating a defined step. That is why the series ties competitiveness to redesign of management and organization rather than to tool selection, and warns that companies unable to wield this strategic asset will be filtered out.

The series also tracks the vendor side, noting that SaaS providers specialized by business function are moving to capture markets with AI, and that products for procurement automation are expected to appear in Japan from the second half of 2026. Shionogi is cited among the advanced companies already examining AI use in procurement.