【Generative AI】The day when overseas Japanese consulting companies disappeared

“Can we still provide consulting services to Japanese companies overseas…?”

As a Japanese consulting company reading this article, have you ever felt this way?

With the spread of AI chat tools (e.g., generative AI such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Grok), Japanese consulting companies overseas are being eliminated (demand is falling sharply).

*The overseas Japanese consulting companies discussed in this article mainly refer to business companies that provide a full range of services such as “human resources, labor, accounting, legal affairs, etc.”

First, before getting into the main topic of this article, let’s take a look at which industries and fields have been replaced by AI.

Industries and fields replaced by AI

As AI becomes popular, there are several obvious characteristics of industries and fields replaced by AI.

〇 Jobs that only provide simple information
〇 Jobs that mainly involve writing formulaic texts
〇 Jobs that involve a lot of repetitive tasks and do not require much thinking or creativity
〇 Jobs with shallow expertise and relying on knowledge that even AI can learn in a short time

Specific industries and occupations that meet this characteristic are as follows.

① Customer support (first-line support)

Chatbots will replace FAQs and first-line inquiries.

② General translation work (especially simple content)

The accuracy of ChatGPT and other tools will improve, and low-cost work will disappear.

③ Article writers (batch-generated SEO articles)

News digests, product introductions, template blog articles, etc. can be created instantly through artificial intelligence.

④ Data entry and simple clerical work

Combined with automation tools (RPA + AI), these tasks can be reduced at one time.

⑤ Basic administrative assistants such as human resources, labor and accounting

Artificial intelligence will assist or replace resume screening, drafting employment contracts, and preliminary reviews of financial reports.

⑥ Telemarketing/call center (script reading type)

Replaced by artificial intelligence voice response and automatic appointment system.

⑦ Consulting companies

Since AI can now collect and provide qualified information, there is no need to seek advice from consultants if the content is general.

Why are overseas Japanese consulting companies disappearing?

Why are overseas Japanese consulting companies able to expand overseas business? In this regard, when Japanese client companies expand overseas business, Japanese consulting companies will accompany client companies to establish local legal entities overseas, or seek peace of mind from Japanese companies (Japanese) like them.

In addition, since they need to understand the language and culture of Japanese companies (Japanese), and overseas labor and accounting work are difficult, they will rely on Japanese consulting companies that “can be entrusted to us with confidence”, and will sign contracts with them in the form of “peace of mind fees” even if the fees are slightly higher. This has been the case so far.

However, opening a Japanese consulting company overseas does not require much capital and technology, the threshold is low, and the market is saturated. Especially in China, to carry out actual labor and legal business, it must be a Chinese company that is certified locally in China, so although it is called a “Japanese consulting company”, most consulting companies are in the commercial circulation between client companies and Chinese companies.

※ Some Japanese consulting companies are commercial companies that charge high introduction fees to client companies just to introduce and match the companies they want to contact.

In this case, if you only target Japanese companies (Japanese-funded companies) overseas and compete for a small and shrinking market, it will be a war of attrition. In addition, with the rise of generative artificial intelligence in recent years, “overseas Japanese-funded consulting companies” have also emerged, so only a few Japanese consulting companies can survive, and the rest will naturally be eliminated.

What will be the future of overseas Japanese IT consulting companies?

If overseas Japanese IT consulting companies only provide “initial system implementation support and business design support”, they will also face the risk of being eliminated.

By making full use of ChatGPT + SaaS tools, work will be largely automated and standardized, so Japanese IT consulting companies that are only responsible for initial implementation settings and manual creation as in the past will lose their value.

(Client companies can also reduce implementation and usage costs by directly contracting with IT vendors that provide SaaS services, supplemented by AI technology.)

In addition, Japanese IT consulting companies established overseas often only know “GAFA” systems such as Google and AWS. Especially in China, where local Chinese IT/Web services (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.) are booming, it is also crucial to master the knowledge and technology of these services. In other words, if you only limit yourself to the “GAFA” system, when introducing and operating the system locally in China, the effect is not ideal due to the different methods.

What will the future be like for IT companies that can independently develop systems and sign contracts?

On the other hand, “IT companies that outsource system development” like us are in a situation where “companies that can create technology will still have weapons in the future”, and it can be said that they are unlikely to be replaced by AI.

The reason is that the needs of global client companies always tend to “optimize for their own companies”.

For example, a large number of specific business needs and collaborations cannot be covered by SaaS alone; and generative AI and tools can only operate under the “existing model”, so further customized development is inseparable from the power of technology and engineers. We believe that “IT companies that outsource system development” like us are indispensable in all walks of life and business fields, whether in China, Japan or other overseas countries.

Summary

In today’s AI era, the idea that “running a Japanese consulting firm overseas = being Japanese” is no longer true. In this era of “either become a true professional or disappear”, consulting firms and consultants who are not “ready to change” will disappear from the market in the next few years.

Supplement

In recent years, the use of search engines has declined due to the use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

In traditional Internet searches, many articles are SEO optimized through keyword selection, so users also need to spend time screening and discarding the information of each website and article to determine whether the information is correct.

Some people point out that the answers given by AI may be wrong, but the information on the Internet itself is often wrong.

At the end of the day, using AI to find information is no different than using AI to find information if the source of the information is the internet, so let’s use AI efficiently.