Nissin's Iwashita: build AI culture, don't chase ROI

The discussion took place at a panel session at Nikkei BP's "Technology Exhibition to Create the Future: Nikkei Cross Tech NEXT Tokyo 2026," scheduled for September 29-30, 2026. The three speakers run DX at companies with very different profiles, which is why their answers diverge. Nissin Foods Holdings, a domestic food maker, is still changing its operations and business to be AI-based, so Iwashita's stance is to foster a culture rather than defend a return. Credit Saison, a credit card company whose fields move fastest, offers the opposite lesson: it built its SAISON ASSIST chatbot in-house, then folded it into SaaS when AI advanced too quickly to follow on its own. Ebara, whose overseas sales exceed half of the total, has to weigh laws and business forms that differ by country, so its path is local adaptation rather than one global rollout.

Read together, the three cases suggest the ROI question lands differently depending on how exposed a company is to fast-moving technology and to overseas regulation. Nissin's position may reflect a phase where the work is still to make AI the default, while Credit Saison's reversal looks like a case of choosing speed over ownership. Whether treating ROI as secondary pays off is likely to hinge on whether the culture change actually reaches operations, and not just on the tools adopted.