Companies in Japan are lagging behind those in the United States and Europe when it comes to using generative artificial intelligence, a government white paper showed on Friday.
The whitepaper found that 46.8% of companies in Japan are using generative AI in their operations, compared to 84.7% in the US and 72.7% in Germany.
Japanese companies are using generative AI only for taking minutes of meetings and creating emails and documents. In contrast, companies in the US and Europe are using the technology in a broader range of activities, including customer service, the whitepaper said.
Including companies deploying generative AI on a pilot basis, the percentage of companies using the technology in Japan is about 70%, lower than the more than 90% in both the US and Germany.
In Japan, about 70% of companies are pinning their hopes on the positive impact of generative AI, such as making operations more efficient. At the same time, companies are also concerned about the risks, including copyright infringement and data leaks, the whitepaper said.
The percentage of people using generative AI in Japan is 9.1%, lower than 46.3% in the US and 34.6% in Germany.
Still, the whitepaper pointed to the potential demand for generative AI in Japan. Some 70% of people would like to use the technology in the future to look things up online or ask for health advice.
The white paper called for cracking down on fake online ads that spread misinformation or impersonate celebrities. One in four people who saw social media posts with unconfirmed information about the Jan. 1 earthquake on the Noto Peninsula in central Japan had subsequently spread such messages, the white paper said.
