Human-Centered AI Institute

What Human-Centered AI Institute does

Human-Centered AI Institute (HCAI) is a specialized AI research and development organization established in April 2024 by Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc. (TSE: 2433), one of Japan's largest advertising and marketing groups. HCAI operates as an internal division of the parent rather than a separately incorporated entity, with its stated mission to develop 'Human-Centered AI' — generative AI, AI agents, large language models, world models, and digital humans — positioned to augment human creativity rather than automate away human work. The institute is led by Chief AI Officer Masaya Mori and a small senior team, and it functions as the group's central R&D hub for AI-driven marketing transformation, publishing proprietary research, conducting large-scale consumer surveys (including a 30,000-respondent national AI lifestyle study), and establishing group-wide AI policy and training programs that have reached 31,000+ employees across 296 training sessions in FY2025.

HCAI's product portfolio spans a core integrated marketing platform (CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM) and multiple AI-native solutions: Virtual Lifestyle (バーチャル生活者), AI consumer personas generated from a 7,000-profile subset of Hakuhodo's HABIT 200,000-person consumer panel; Branded AI Agent™ and Virtual Salesperson for cross-touchpoint consumer engagement; the DATA GEAR suite for AI-ready data infrastructure and Voice-of-Customer analytics; Bobottou for AI-conducted employee interviews; AI Rap Business Card for creative self-introduction video generation; Multi-Agent Brainstorm AI; and AaaS (Advertising as a Service) for AI-powered media planning. The underlying technology stack leverages multimodal generative AI across text, image, video, audio, and structured data, with infrastructure partnerships with Microsoft (AI Co-Innovation Lab Kobe) and Google Cloud (Gemini company-wide adoption) and alliances with technology startups and cross-disciplinary experts in IP, law, sociology, psychology, design, and art.

Commercially, HCAI does not report revenue separately; its outputs are delivered primarily through Hakuhodo DY Group companies (Hakuhodo, Daiko, Yomiko, Hakuhodo Technologies) and enterprise consulting engagements with external clients. Pricing is quote-based with multi-year contracts, and only one external enterprise logo (Fuji Television) is publicly disclosed. Operations are concentrated in Tokyo, Japan, with the institute serving the group's Japan enterprise advertiser base and positioning to extend into adjacent verticals such as direct sales and customer experience through its Branded AI Agent™ and Virtual Salesperson products.

Name

Human-Centered AI Institute

Legal name

Human-Centered AI Institute (博報堂DYホールディングス人間中心AI研究所)

Website

https://hcaii.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2024

Operating status

Operating

Short description

Human-Centered AI Institute (HCAI) is the dedicated AI research and development division of Hakuhodo DY Holdings, building generative AI agents, virtual consumer personas, and an integrated marketing platform for the group's enterprise advertiser clients across Japan.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Marketing Solutions

NAICS

Custom Computer Programming Services (541511), Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (541910), Advertising Agencies (541810)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)

akta.pro primary industry

AI/ML Engineering & Model Development Services (BPAEAHAF)

Keywords

• AI marketing solutions
• Generative AI agents
• Consumer insight platforms
• Advertising technology
• Marketing data infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

Tokyo

HQ country

Japan

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Internal R&D Services: HCAI functions as the AI research and development arm of Hakuhodo DY Holdings, providing AI technologies and solutions to group companies and client enterprises. Revenue is generated through internal deployment and client-facing consulting services.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

HCAI is the AI research and development division of Hakuhodo DY Holdings that develops Human-Centered AI solutions for marketing, advertising, and creative work. The institute builds and deploys AI-powered products including the CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM integrated marketing platform, AI consumer personas (Virtual Lifestyle), branded AI agents, voice-of-customer analytics, AI-ready data infrastructure, and AI-driven employee research tools. Solutions are delivered through Hakuhodo DY Group companies and direct enterprise engagements, serving advertisers, brands, and internal group operations.

Product overview

Human-Centered AI Institute operates as Hakuhodo DY Holdings' primary AI research and development organization, offering a portfolio of AI-powered marketing solutions. The core platform is CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM, an integrated marketing platform with five modules (STRATEGY BLOOM, MEDIA BLOOM, CREATIVE BLOOM, COMMERCE BLOOM, ENGAGEMENT BLOOM). Key products include Virtual Lifestyle (AI consumer personas from 7,000 profiles), DATA GEAR solutions (AI-Ready data infrastructure and Voice Analysis), Branded AI Agent™ and Virtual Salesperson for customer engagement, Bobottou for employee insights, and AI Rap Business Card for creative communications. The portfolio is complemented by AaaS (Advertising as a Service) media solutions and AI Craft Studio for creative production. All solutions are built around the 'Human-Centered AI' philosophy focused on augmenting human creativity rather than replacing it.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM: Integrated marketing platform combining strategy, media, creative, commerce, and engagement modules powered by AI, developed by Hakuhodo DY Holdings with HCAI research integrated.
• DATA GEAR for AI-Ready
• DATA GEAR Voice Analysis
• バーチャル生活者 (Virtual Lifestyle)
• Branded AI Agent™
• ボボットウ (Bobotou)
• AIラップ名刺 (AI Rap Business Card)

Products and services

• CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM Integrated marketing platform combining five modules (STRATEGY BLOOM, MEDIA BLOOM, CREATIVE BLOOM, COMMERCE BLOOM, ENGAGEMENT BLOOM) powered by Human-Centered AI technology. Enables cross-functional marketing strategy, creative production, media optimization, commerce, and customer engagement management for enterprise clients.
• Virtual Lifestyle (バーチャル生活者) AI-powered virtual consumer personas generated from Hakuhodo's 7,000 real consumer profiles (HABIT database) combined with the Querida 200,000-scale consumer panel survey data. Enables marketers to interview and brainstorm with virtual consumers for marketing planning, product development insights, and persona-based decision making.
• Branded AI Agent™ AI agent solution that embodies brand personality and values, enabling consistent brand dialogue across all consumer touchpoints. Implements brand personality as a living AI agent for authentic customer interactions and brand experience continuity.
• Virtual Salesperson (バーチャル販売員) AI sales agent replicating the personality and approach of real sales representatives, providing continued engagement after initial sales conversations to maintain purchase motivation and customer experience continuity.
• DATA GEAR for AI-Ready Data infrastructure solution that prepares organizations for AI utilization through five pillars: unstructured/external data utilization, data management, AI-oriented databases (vector, graph, relational), ID integration, and AI-integrated system design. Integrates structured and unstructured data optimized for AI performance.
• DATA GEAR Voice Analysis Voice of Customer (VoC) analytics solution combining generative AI with Hakuhodo's planning methodology to extract deep insights, latent needs, and customer sentiments from feedback data across multiple sources including social media, call centers, and surveys.
• Bobottou (ボボットウ) Employee interview program using a character-based AI interviewer (Bobomaru) to extract employee insights, motivations, and authentic feedback through conversational AI interviews for organizational development and HR analytics.
• AI Rap Business Card (AIラップ名刺) AI-powered self-introduction service that generates rap-style video presentations from user profile input and photos. Includes motion lyrics animation and QR code for digital business card sharing, combining image/video generation AI with rap voice synthesis technology.

Quantifiable outcome

• 31,000+ employees trained in AI through 296 training sessions in FY2025
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability12 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and supporting.

• Technology and AI StartupscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 April 2024Strategic alliances with leading technology companies and AI startups for joint AI technology development, personnel training, and ecosystem formation aligned with HCAI's human-centered AI philosophy.
• Domain Experts (IP, Law, Sociology, Psychology, Design, Art)supportingStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 April 2024Collaboration with experts across intellectual property, law, sociology, psychology, design, and art to establish trustworthy AI that society and consumers can rely on.
• Microsoft (Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Lab Kobe)coreTechnology or Integration · 1 April 2023HCAI utilized Microsoft's AI Co-Innovation Lab in Kobe for developing the Virtual Lifestyle Person solution. Microsoft provided technical expertise, ethical AI guidelines, and cloud infrastructure for AI development and validation experiments.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Omnicom Group: Global advertising holding company (including BBDO, DDB, TBWA) building AI-driven marketing platforms and agency networks. Comparable as a holding-company-level investment in proprietary AI for advertising and marketing applications.
• WPP: Global advertising holding company that has aggressively invested in AI through WPP Open and AI-native agencies. Most direct global analog: a holding company establishing AI-native marketing platforms and agent-based brand experiences, competing for the same enterprise advertisers as HCAI's CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM.
• Publicis Groupe: Global advertising holding company with its own AI platform (Marcel/CoreAI) and significant investment in AI-driven marketing transformation. Directly comparable as a competitor advertising group building proprietary AI capabilities for marketing applications, with HCAI operating as Hakuhodo's equivalent research arm.
• Accenture: Global IT and consulting firm with substantial AI/ML engineering practices for marketing transformation (Accenture Song). Comparable business model arm that develops AI agents, generative AI solutions, and data infrastructure for enterprise clients, including marketing applications.
• Adobe: Adobe's Experience Cloud (with Adobe Sensei/Sensei GenAI) provides AI-augmented marketing, content, and customer data platforms. Comparable as a platform vendor offering AI-powered marketing infrastructure that complements or competes with HCAI's CREATIVITY ENGINE BLOOM and DATA GEAR offerings.
• Salesforce (Marketing Cloud): Enterprise marketing and customer engagement platform with Einstein AI layer. Comparable as a marketing technology platform incorporating generative AI, AI agents, and consumer data infrastructure — direct adjacency to HCAI's integrated marketing and AI agent offerings.

Direct peers

• Dentsu Group: Largest Japanese-headquartered competitor advertising group with its own AI initiatives and consumer research capabilities. Direct competitor in the Japanese advertising market, serving the same enterprise brand clients with overlapping AI-for-marketing offerings.

Emerging players

• Sprinklr: AI-native enterprise marketing and customer experience platform. Comparable as an AI-first marketing platform providing AI agents (Branded AI Agent / Virtual Salesperson equivalents) and consumer insights, targeting the same enterprise advertiser personas as HCAI's offerings.
• McKinsey (QuantumBlack): McKinsey's AI arm (QuantumBlack) and Lilli platform apply AI to marketing and consumer insights for enterprise clients. Comparable as an internal AI research function within a professional services parent, applying AI/ML engineering to transform client-facing marketing and research workflows.
• Deloitte (AI & Data Analytics): Deloitte's AI and analytics practice delivers AI/ML engineering and data infrastructure transformation services. CAIO Masaya Mori previously worked at Deloitte Tohmatsu; Deloitte is a comparable large consulting firm's AI practice delivering enterprise AI transformation.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/hcai_hakuhodo
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCzGMjjYsV-XZL5gNs3GIW-A

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Human-Centered AI Institute