Santen creates 4,000+ Copilot AI agents in a year

Santen's AI-agent push did not start from scratch. The company introduced its own internal conversational AI environment, Santen AI Chat, in 2024, and had already been using Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint as core communication and file-sharing tools. That existing Microsoft footprint was cited as a reason for choosing a company-wide Copilot rollout in October 2025.

To spread adoption beyond personal productivity, Santen in November 2025 launched a generative AI ambassador program. It appointed an ambassador lead in each executive's division and placed about 180 ambassadors across the company, while a dedicated organizational change team runs monthly or more frequent training, a knowledge-sharing community, and department-specific support.

The internal environment for no-code agent creation was ready in early 2026, and the Field Coach example shows how a business-side training team built its own agent with technical support from the DX development office. Santen now says it will focus on linking AI use to business goals and KPIs, and on strengthening lifecycle management and security governance as it extends custom-agent development to business-side "citizen developers."