Once in the forefront of Japan’s early social networking movement, MIXI currently mostly works in the sports, digital entertainment, and lifestyle sectors. The company is well-known for its worldwide hits, such as the family-oriented photo and video-sharing software “FamilyAlbum” and the mobile game “MONSTER STRIKE.”
MIXI worked with OpenAI to implement ChatGPT Enterprise across the company in 45 days, staying ahead of many other Japanese companies. All employees were rolled out quickly, which led to a lot of internal use cases. Some departmental initiatives were able to reduce work hours by more than 90%.
“We regain time for creativity when operational efficiency increases. And at that point, we employ AI once more, speeding up the following concept.”
Establishing A Secure Setting For The Application Of AI
MIXI continuously provides services that are in line with its corporate vision, which is “to enrich communication and inspire moments of joy.” It takes constant innovation and new concepts to produce unforgettable experiences and deep connections.
MIXI quickly adopted AI after realizing its potential and began paying for ChatGPT Plus memberships for more than 1000 workers. However, issues with internal data handling policies and consistent data-training parameters surfaced. Director and Senior Corporate Officer Tatsuma Murase remembers: “Our policies for utilizing company data were confusing, and we had to verify each employee’s AI settings separately. It was clear that in order for everyone to use AI properly, we needed to establish a safe, cohesive environment.
Employees may now safely and conveniently exchange their knowledge and GPTs thanks to the company-wide implementation of ChatGPT Enterprise. Teams are now able to operate more quickly and effectively than ever before thanks to the assurance that comes with accessing internal data safely.
A 45-Day Deployment Fueled By Practical Assistance
It often takes quarters to roll out a new platform to thousands of users. Thanks to a close collaboration with OpenAI’s Customer Success team, MIXI was completed in 45 days. OpenAI offered mitigation playbooks derived from previous company launches in response to concerns highlighted by various departments, ranging from handling personal data to guaranteeing seamless operations.
Following launch, MIXI and OpenAI conducted three main enablement initiatives:
- Every employee receives live training on ChatGPT 101, which focuses on daily suggestions that cut down on actual work.
- Workshop for new hires: A generative AI onboarding session to help April 2025 grads become fluent in AI right away.
- Hackathon: A practical sprint in which developers used the OpenAI Agents SDK to create apps, transforming abstract ideas into working prototypes.
- A close-up of a laptop screen displaying the ChatGPT Codex page, a presentation on ChatGPT Enterprise, and group collaboration centered around laptops.
Many MIXI staff members were able to swiftly embrace ChatGPT and OpenAI technologies thanks to these extensive efforts, which sparked crucial use cases in a variety of departments.
Using GPTs To Strengthen Family Album’s Message
With over 25 million users in 175 countries and regions and seven languages, FamilyAlbum is one of MIXI’s most popular apps. Its purpose is to assist parents in sharing pictures and videos of their kids with their loved ones. The app facilitates the development of new forms of interaction and communication among families all around the world.
According to Nobuhisa Hirata, Assistant Chief General Manager of the FamilyAlbum Business Department, “we’re using GPTs to enhance brand understanding and design AB tests in our advertising creative planning, which results in a reduction of approximately 28 hours of work per month.” “Our groups have created GPTs that promote a cooperative culture in which participants actively test and improve prompts together.”
Taglines are reviewed by Copy Checker GPT to make sure they seem “FamilyAlbum-like.” The GPT recommends gentler language that is consistent with the brand voice when a proposal contains strong or forceful terminology.
Innovative Scheduling GPT: Allows non-native speakers to write global advertising text that honors local nuances and company values. The GPT returns complete headline-to-call-to-action sets when users define the language and target persona.
Our operational efficiency has already increased thanks to AI, but we’re now looking beyond that. Our goal is to make AI a vital component of our products rather than just a collaborator on our teams. Our objective is to provide families worldwide with more individualized, cozy, and user-friendly experiences. We think we can strengthen and improve family ties even further by fusing AI technology with FamilyAlbum’s mission,” Hirata says.
Allocating Analyst Time To Interpersonal Relationships
With over 70 funds invested in and a portfolio of over 3,000 firms, including indirect investments, MIXI’s investment branch makes investments in startups and funds.
“Manually keeping an eye on all of our many investment targets has become impossible,” says Gohshi Araki, Head of Corporate Development. “The powers that AI offered were invaluable. We now use ChatGPT for monitoring and investment evaluations, which greatly facilitates risk assessment and adds value.
To fundamentally arrange proposals received by VC funds, the investment division created a specific GPT known as “VC Fund Initial Review Support.” This technology enhances the overall quality of evaluations and significantly cuts down on the time spent on first investment reviews. It used to take one to two hours to evaluate a single investment, but this GPT has cut that time down to five to ten minutes, guaranteeing that every team member produces consistently excellent outcomes. Additionally, the division has witnessed other cases where workloads have been lowered by more than 70% through the use of ChatGPT Enterprise.
According to Mr. Araki, the time that was previously wasted is now being efficiently used for relationship-building and interpersonal communication duties, which are activities that are especially well-suited to human interaction.
1.600 GPTs And Counting: Everyone Is A Developer
Within three months of MIXI implementing ChatGPT Enterprise across the whole organization, more than 80% of staff members were active weekly users, generating over 1,600 GPTs. Significant progress has been made, according to Mr. Murase: “Some projects have cut work hours by over 90%.” “Instead of depending on developers, employees can now create tools themselves,” he continued. Everyone seems to be a developer these days.
Yoshino agrees, stating that MIXI plans to continue utilizing OpenAI products to create new communication-focused experiences and that the organization’s capabilities have expanded since the launch. “We intend to keep utilizing ChatGPT and the OpenAI API to their fullest potential in order to foster the kind of meaningful connections that MIXI advocates for.”