TOKYO, Nov. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Enterprise AI Governance Group (EAIGG) has launched in Japan through a series of executive engagements connecting Japanese leaders with its global AI ecosystem across Silicon Valley, Europe and Israel. The program links national AI strategy with enterprise execution, exploring how Japan can combine its industrial expertise and tradition of continuous improvement with AI-native operating models.
Led in Japan by Professor Tsutomu (Tom) Nakano of Aoyama Business School, the initiative brings together policy discussions, executive education and enterprise dialogue. Its central theme is Intelligent Kaizen: extending continuous process improvement into continuous enterprise learning, with human expertise, proprietary data and AI agents improving business outcomes through ongoing feedback.
Engineering Trust in AI
The launch began at the Global Startup Expo in Osaka. An Engineering Trust in AI panel brought together EAIGG founder Anik Bose, Anna Fellander, Head of EAIGG Europe, and Fujitsu VP Nishi, with Tom Nakano moderating. The discussion connected Silicon Valley’s focus on deployment, European governance principles and Japan’s emphasis on reliability and human-centered technology.
Panel themes included human accountability for consequential decisions, visibility into operating AI systems, permissions proportionate to risk, auditable actions and the ability to intervene or stop an AI system. These controls become especially important as agents execute tasks and Physical AI interacts with the real world. The discussion also emphasized enterprise ownership of the AI harness: the controls connecting models to company data, tools and workflows.
“Europe’s contribution to the global AI conversation is the conviction that trust and innovation are not opposing forces,” said Fellander. “Trust must be engineered into AI through transparency, traceability, accountability and protection of human autonomy. The opportunity now is to evolve governance at the speed of the technology—so that responsible AI becomes an enabler of adoption and economic value, rather than simply a compliance requirement.”
AI Sovereignty and Trusted Partnerships
A fireside chat between Bose and Barak Ben-Avinoam of the Israel Innovation Authority explored sovereignty as strategic freedom of action: retaining control over critical capabilities and continuing to operate during disruption while drawing on global technology and trusted partners.
Israel’s experience illustrated how public R&D funding and the Yozma venture capital program helped establish an innovation ecosystem that private capital and global markets could scale. Procurement, pilots and shared infrastructure offered ways to validate technologies with civilian and security applications. For Japan, the discussion highlighted selective control over sensitive data, critical inference, cybersecurity and edge systems, alongside resilient access to capabilities supplied by trusted partners.
The conversation also explored how Israeli strengths in AI, cybersecurity and autonomy could complement Japanese robotics, manufacturing expertise and industrial scale. Joint deployments could strengthen resilience while connecting emerging technologies with demanding industrial environments.
“Sovereign AI should not mean building everything yourself,” said Ben-Avinoam. “It means preserving strategic freedom of action—controlling the capabilities critical to national resilience while building trusted partnerships where global collaboration creates greater strength.”
Intelligent Kaizen and Enterprise Execution
Following the Osaka discussions, an AI-native workshop with SMBC and JRI, conducted by Nakano and Bose, explored how financial institutions could redesign workflows around intelligence as a factor of production. Participants examined how human teams and digital labor could work together, prioritize high-value opportunities and measure Return on Intelligence (RoII), with governance embedded in the operating model.
Intelligent Kaizen builds on Japan’s management strengths by turning accumulated organizational knowledge into intelligence that enterprises can apply and improve. Human judgment remains accountable, while AI agents help execute work and feedback informs the next cycle of improvement. The focus shifts toward measurable outcomes, including the cost and quality of completed workflows, while enterprises retain control over proprietary data and their AI harness.
“Enterprise 5.0 is ultimately about organizational transformation, not simply technology adoption,” said Nakano. “Japanese enterprises have an opportunity to combine AI-native capabilities with their deep organizational knowledge and management strengths—redesigning how people, AI agents and distributed intelligence work together to create measurable value.”
The Japan program also includes an Enterprise 5.0 executive forum with Plug and Play and NVIDIA, focused on moving AI from pilots into production and redesigning organizations around humans and digital labor.
“Japan has a distinctive opportunity to combine its industrial leadership, quality discipline and trusted institutions with AI-native operating models,” said Bose. “Our ambition is to build a lasting bridge between Japan’s enterprise leaders and the global AI-native ecosystem—and help turn intelligence into measurable economic value.”
About EAIGG
The Enterprise AI Governance Group (EAIGG) is a global, neutral, non-vendor network of more than 5,500 executives, practitioners, entrepreneurs, investors, and academics advancing responsible AI innovation and enterprise transformation. Through its Human AI Council, executive programs, AI-Native Enterprise Playbook, research, and global co-innovation forums, EAIGG connects established enterprises with AI-native companies and thought leaders to accelerate responsible deployment and measurable value creation.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Emmanuel Benhamou
Managing Director, EAIGG
emmanuel@eaigg.org
202.341.0269
