NTT DATA Verified the Effectiveness of AI Consumer Agents in Kao’s Product Development Research, Driving Greater Operational Efficiency and Sophistication

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business and technology services, today announced the success of its “AI Consumers” proof of concept (PoC) for a makeup brand operated by Kao Corporation, a leading Japanese consumer goods company and a major global cosmetics and personal care manufacturer. The PoC assessed the feasibility of using AI models to simulate the behavioral characteristics of consumers and develop personas to aid product development research.

As consumer values and purchasing behaviors continue to shift, it has become increasingly important for marketing departments to rapidly and accurately capture the evolving needs of their customers. However, in conventional product development research processes, significant time and costs are required for research design, respondent recruitment, fieldwork and analysis. Within limited development timelines, it is difficult to sufficiently deepen research data or validate hypotheses.

For Kao’s makeup brand, which launches new products each season, shortening the product development cycle has been a critical requirement. Against this backdrop, NTT DATA utilized its marketing AI agent service, in combination with Kao’s accumulated consumer research, purchase and social media data, to create multiple AI Consumers and an AI interviewer for use in product development research.

While remaining consistent with insights gained through traditional research methods, the PoC demonstrated that AI‑driven research could potentially shorten the timeline from 1.5 months to just 0.5 days—a 99% reduction—delivering significant efficiency gains and enabling a more advanced consumer‑insight process. It also reduced the operational workload involved in respondent recruitment and survey execution.

“In recent years, consumer trends have shifted from traditional quarterly and monthly cycles to a weekly cycle. For consumer brands, responding to these rapidly changing trends with a high level of agility is critical to business growth,” said Mizuho Mitake, Head of Second Industry Business Sector, Japan, NTT DATA*.

“This PoC has demonstrated that AI can achieve significant gains in speed in the product development process while ensuring quality equal to or even exceeding that of human output. NTT DATA will expand the application of these results beyond product development into marketing operations.”

*Mizuho Mitake leads commercial strategy, sales, and consulting across Consumer Retail (including vertically integrated retail, grocery & convenience), Real Estate, Food, Beverage, Alcohol & Tobacco, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Materials, and Integrated Energy in Japan.

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Within our own business, NTT DATA is accelerating dramatic improvements in software development productivity, AI literacy and practical skills development. Through these initiatives, NTT DATA seeks to advance AI-native business process transformation, address social challenges such as labor shortages, and enable a world in which people can focus on higher value-added activities.

About NTT DATA

NTT DATA is a $30+ billion business and technology services leader, serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We are committed to accelerating client success and positively impacting society through responsible innovation. We are one of the world’s leading AI and digital infrastructure providers, with unmatched capabilities in enterprise-scale AI, cloud, security, connectivity, data centers and application services. Our consulting and industry solutions help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future. As a Global Top Employer, we have experts in more than 70 countries. We also offer clients access to a robust ecosystem of innovation centers as well as established and start-up partners. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, which invests over $3 billion each year in R&D.

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