On July 2, 2026, Mercari celebrated 13 years since the launch of its service.

On the day of the anniversary, members of Mercari Group poured into a Tokyo ballroom for the FY2027 Group Vision & Roadmap Presentation, with overseas offices participating online.

The Group used the event to unveil their slogan, “Leverage AI-Native for Hypergrowth.” This powerful declaration carries the meaning of leveraging AI to drive hypergrowth for the Group’s products, users, organizations, and members.

In this article, we will look back at our progress during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026 (FY2026) and share Mercari’s policies and aspirations for FY2027.

Note: This article will focus on three key directions for Mercari Inc.’s business: Group-wide strategy, AI initiatives, and Japan Business. The July 2 event also featured presentations from Mercari US and Corporate, which will not be covered here.

Reviewing FY2026: “Back to Startup × AI-Native” yielded tangible results

“Last fiscal year, we pursued ‘Back to Startup’ and ‘AI-Native.'”

Those were the words Mercari Representative Executive Officer and CEO Shintaro Yamada (@suadd) delivered on stage to open his review of the past year.

Standing in front of a packed room, he said that declaring the slogan Back to Startup two years ago had led to a shift in individual awareness, progress in knowledge management, and more active cross-organizational communication, which helped cut through silos and revive the organization’s Move Fast energy.

The AI-Native transformation initiative unveiled at the beginning of FY2026 drove rapid progress with a company-wide review of operations and the introduction of AI tools. @suadd continued by saying that working with AI on a daily basis is now commonplace at Mercari. Likewise, the integration of AI functionality into company products has surged ahead, directly contributing to increased user satisfaction.

“Our business growth rate has increased in both Japan and the US. We’re finally back to being a company capable of rapid growth, just like a startup,” said @suadd. He also highlighted the Kashima Antlers 2025 J1 championship win; the club is operated by Mercari Group. In his remarks lauding their victory, he expressed his desire for Mercari to also be a winning team that continues to succeed.

Group Direction: “Leverage AI for Hypergrowth” @suadd

The new slogan flashed onto the giant screen: “AI-Native for Hypergrowth.”

@suadd shared that the goal is to go beyond mere productivity improvements or operational efficiency through AI and to wield an AI-Native mindset as our weapon of choice to unlock hypergrowth.

@suadd posited the evolution of AI as “a major turning point that will fundamentally rewrite the premises of business and the rules of competition as we’ve known them.”

“There is no need to try to be competitive based on past success patterns; now is the time to go on the offensive,” said @suadd.

He then unveiled the policy for the new fiscal year based on two pillars.

1. Unleashing the potential of our organization and people by becoming AI-Native Thus far, we’ve had to narrow our focus to fit within the scope of limited resources, but in the new fiscal year, we will evolve our business processes to a state where numerous AI agents autonomously carry out tasks, flattening the organization in the process. We are entering a phase where we will directly shift each of our members’ time and energy toward value creation, significantly expanding the capacity of the entire organization.
2. Maximizing value for our users and entering hypergrowth AI-Native transformation is entirely for the purpose of providing value to our users. We will reinvest any resulting business growth, revenue, and profit back into our users, products, and talent. We will also drive this cycle at a speed and scale that is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

We’re now in an exciting phase where we’re able to significantly accelerate the achievement of our mission: “Circulate all forms of value to unleash the potential in all people.”
Now that we’ve entered a strong growth phase, it’s time to shift into high gear and deliver value to the world with unprecedented speed and Go Bold vigor.

AI is also developing at an incredible pace, and some of the rules that once applied to our products and organization no longer do; we’ll need to keep changing and adapting. Things will probably become more chaotic than ever, but this is also a chance for both the company and individual members to stoke rapid growth.

“Leverage AI for Hypergrowth,” emphasized @suadd as he wrapped up his segment of the day’s presentation.

AI Direction: Shifting from AI as a personal tool to workflows built upon agentic AI @kimuras

Next to take the stage was Shunya Kimura (@kimuras), Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), and Chief AI Officer (CAIO). Shunya kicked off his presentation by reflecting on last year’s Roadmap event, where he shared a vision of the future. He pictured marketing team members using AI to create campaign videos, internal documents generated by AI, and teams rapidly prototyping new services together.

A year later, “much of that has already become reality,” said @kimuras.

An AI-Native culture has taken root within Mercari, and now that every one of our members uses AI, we can boast a 100% adoption rate of the technology.

@kimuras also conducted a proof of concept (PoC) utilizing “AI Pods”—an initiative that leverages small, agile teams with AI at the core to drive the development process—and demonstrated that this approach has evolved into a reproducible, thoroughly AI-driven development model. Since the AI-Native declaration made at the beginning of this fiscal year, and with the appointment of @kimuras as CHRO and CAIO announced on June 1, 2026, Mercari has continued to make steady progress toward establishing its position as an AI-Native Company.

The AI Task Force, which launched at the beginning of FY2026, mapped over 3,800 business processes across 33 areas to identify opportunities for greater efficiency. Looking back at their work, this helped achieve savings equivalent to approximately 495,000 labor hours out of the roughly 1 million hours of annual efficiency potential identified in the early months of the same fiscal year.

In October 2025, Mercari established the AI Governance Team to formalize the basic policies and guidelines for AI usage from three perspectives: security, legal, and privacy. @kimuras stated that the Task Force also created a one-stop point of contact to allow employees to submit inquiries on cross-functional topics through a single consultation form.

While the past year has given us iron confidence, having come this far is also precisely what made us aware of the challenges we need to overcome.

“If we use AI purely as a convenient personal tool, its potential will eventually plateau. Even if each of us becomes able to work faster, if workflows and organizational structures remain unchanged, we won’t be able to realize the full potential of AI.”

Based on this feedback and realization, the company’s next actions presented themselves.

Shifting from AI as a personal tool to workflows built upon agentic AI

At the start of the new fiscal year, @kimuras announced that Mercari would fundamentally redesign its business flows, organizational structure, and HR systems premised on integrating AI agents. By changing our daily tasks, which we have steadily accumulated over time, into collaborative work shared with AI agents, we will untether our members from the labor they spend on conventional tasks. This will free up their time to take on more creative challenges.

Rather than looking longingly at projects that “we wish we had time for,” as was the case in the past, we will deliver new value to users at greater speed than ever before, and thanks to AI, pursue business development that was previously thought to be out of reach. This is the vision we aim to breathe life into.

The shape of our organization will also change. @kimuras added that roles and areas of responsibility will become increasingly fluid, making cross-functional work the new norm. As a result, more members will likely take on new roles and challenges. He went on to say that stratified organizations will gradually evolve into flatter, more autonomous structures.

Verbalizing this transformation as a single phrase, he described it as “a shift in assumptions.” The company’s current workflows and team structures are premised on people doing the work. However, Mercari’s members are now restructuring everything premised on AI agents taking care of tasks. What @kimuras most wanted to convey here is that this initiative is about more than just using AI, but rather about designing organizations with AI at their core.

He further announced the establishment of an evaluation policy that will more boldly rewards individuals and teams that achieve outstanding results through the use of AI agents. He also shared that the company has decided to reorganize the AI Task Force from a temporary project into a permanent organization that integrates the AI Task Force and HR into a single, unified team.

@kimuras added that in FY2027, the company will further embed AI-Native practices into our organizational systems and more closely incorporate them into the work of our people.

The element that will make this transformation a common language for the entire company is “The Four Action Levels.”

• Level 1: Use AI as individuals
• Level 2: Master AI agents as individuals
• Level 3: Share AI agents within teams
• Level 4: Delegate to AI agents across the organization

In FY2027, the goal is for all teams to complete Level 3 and for the entire organization to transition to Level 4. @kimuras said that in doing so, the company is aiming to create a work culture where “you seek answers from an agent before asking a person.”

Let’s be professionals who not only comply with guidelines but also take initiative and keep asking whether our own AI agents are providing the right value for society. The mindset for our direction on AI in FY2027 is this: Enjoy the chaos, have high ethical standards, and accelerate the achievement of our mission.

The direction of Japan Business (JB): A year to mold the foundations we have built into results and create a starting point for hypergrowth @mark

Masato Yamamoto (@mark), Executive Officer and Senior Vice President of Japan Business (JB), was on stage to announce JB’s direction. He opened his remarks by looking back on the past saying, “We declared last fiscal year to be a year for preparation, but our results outpaced all expectations, laying the groundwork for disruptive growth.”

Marketplace successfully strengthened the foundation of the product by thoroughly improving the platform’s safety and security and the core user experience. By aligning with marketing initiatives like Super Mercari Market Days, in Q2 our GMV growth rate returned to double-digit growth at over 11% year on year. Through our capital and business partnership with Suruga-ya, we have also begun building a foundation for inventory integration and global expansion in the entertainment and hobby domain.

Source: Mercari Concludes a Capital and Business Partnership Agreement with Suruga-ya (available only in Japanese)

@mark also touched on this reversal by mentioning the roadmap presentation two years ago where he called for us to once again refine the user experience. We were able to increase our numbers precisely because we focused fully on the user experience, even when it meant relinquishing things that looked like seeds of growth. He said that being able to share Marketplace’s success with the entire organization has provided tremendous support.

Fintech has also updated the user experience with the release of Mercari Bank, mixed payment, and other features. In addition, the usage of Merpay, and our other methods of payment, at stores and services outside of Mercari has grown to exceed usage within Mercari. @mark went on to say that this was the year when Merpay became the “main daily payment method” for users, and Fintech became a pillar of the Group’s business both in name and in reality. Mercoin has also completed various projects, such as a business alliance with Coincheck, and has fully launched its wallet concept and cryptoasset domain business. On top of this, the company is making steady progress with its advertising business initiative. In this new business area, the company will continue to take on new challenges based on disciplined monitoring, while applying past lessons to future endeavors, including our decisions to withdraw from certain business areas.

After sharing a review of the results for JB in the last fiscal year, he also discussed the policy for FY2027. In upcoming articles, we’ll share more information about the future goals Mercari Group has for its business.

To wrap up the JB presentation, @mark shared his excitement for FY2027.

“I want you to take a second to look around now. Look at how many people—all of them your colleagues—are here in this room. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to share in a moment that truly gives us a sense of our numbers. I invite you to etch the energy of this room into your memory. Even as we move forward with AI, know that it’s the colleagues gathered here who bring passion to everything they do that make the difference.

Do not allow AI to become merely a tool for enhancing efficiency. Let’s channel our passion into hypergrowth, and let’s lead this new era.”

Final thoughts

Building on the solid response we garnered from Back to Startup and AI-Native, Mercari is now going on the offensive. Our slogan for FY2027, “AI-Native for Hypergrowth,” clearly expresses that intent. Premised on using AI, we will drive the hypergrowth of our products and of the value we deliver to our users, our organizations, and ourselves. The starting line was clearly drawn at the day’s event.

In FY2027, Mercari is committed to continuing to showcase our journey and progress from various perspectives including those of our businesses, organizations, and people.

Photography: chan-kuma