What happened
Seto City adopted POTETO Design's POTETO スマート広報 after two earlier tools proved slow or lacked images. Trials showed staff correction work falling to about 1 hour a month and readership rising several-fold.
Why it matters
The tool lets staff publish a newsletter in minutes by uploading a PDF, adds images automatically, and creates calendars and maps from article text, which may ease the workload that has held back other cities' digital efforts.
WHO IT HITSLocal government communications and public relations staff, especially those handling newsletter digitization, may see reduced manual work and easier publishing. Small AI startups targeting administrative DX also gain a reference case.
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Seto City's move comes as many local governments push to digitize their newsletters to reach smartphone-native generations, but they often face added staff workload. The city had already tried two tools: the first was cumbersome to upload, and the second took about a week and could not handle images or tables. That left readers with text-only pages that were hard to read on phones. POTETO Design, a subsidiary of POTETO Media founded in September 2024 by Kento Fujita, who previously worked on AI at SoftBank, positions POTETO スマート広報 as a smartphone-first service that closes those gaps. The trial results — corrections cut to roughly an hour a month and readership up several-fold — suggest the tool addresses the dual burden of staff time and reader engagement. Fujita says the company aims to help shift administrative communications from merely 'informing' to truly 'reaching' residents, with free trials available this fiscal year.
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