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Emma: Hello, everyone, it's Emma. Thank you for coming back to our channel. Today's topic is about AI at Money Forward. We officially announced our new AI strategy in April. Today we have a special guest, Charlie. Welcome to our channel. Charlie is the engineering director of Money Forward Vietnam, and now he oversees the AI department. So today's topic is about AI. So let's get started.

Charlie: Yeah, thank you, Emma, for the introduction. Hello everyone. It's great to be here with you today. I'm Charlie, engineering director for Vietnam. So I'm currently leading the AI department in MF, in which I oversee crucial sections like the AI agent project, data warehouse project, and internal AI initiatives.

Emma: By the way, everyone, do you see our t-shirts? These t-shirts, Charlie?

Charlie: Yeah, that's a really good question, Emma. So this special edition t-shirt from Money Forward Vietnam features a unique design. So you can see a very special mascot wearing a Vietnamese hat with the Money Forward logo and also the national flag in front of its heart. So I'm particularly proud of our achievement. We just wrapped up our first-ever AI hackathon, which brought together 70 engineers.

The energy was incredible, and the three winning teams created prototypes that are already set to deliver real, tangible value to the company.

Emma: It was a really energetic event. We should do it more. Thank you for leading these kinds of initiatives and events today.

Charlie: Yeah, sure.

Emma: I want to ask you about the current labor market in Japan. What are the challenges they are facing right now?

Charlie: Thank you for the question. This is a very hard question, but also a good one. So let's simply say they are facing a major labor shortage.

So maybe, as you already know, Japan's aging population means it's incredibly difficult for them to find and hire high-skilled staff, especially for back-office work. So they are now a bit in a strategic talk. On one hand, they know that they need to digitize to keep up, but the current AI and automation market isn't the solution that is both affordable and also effective.

This is a very big problem for them.

Emma: That's correct?

Charlie: Yeah. But it's an even bigger opportunity for us to step up and deliver the kind of tailored AI solution that will truly help them succeed.

Emma: That's really good insight. As Charlie said, Japan is an aging society, a silver society right now. The average age in Japan is 48.xx, nearly 50 years old. Old is the average age. Compared to Vietnam, I think Vietnam is 30 years old. So obviously, the society problem situation, our solution can deal with this.

Charlie: Yeah. Correct. So let's take the challenge as our opportunity.

Emma: Yes, exactly correct. I agree with that.

I believe all of you understand how important AI utilization is in Japan. Maybe not only in Japan, but yeah, also in Japan. And our group CEO, Yosuke, wrote an article in April, and then in his article, he highlighted our incredible AI strategy, AI vision, and his ambition to bring the impact of AI to the market and to the world. For now, we are aiming to achieve and improve productivity by using AI, and also expand our support through AI products to our users. So, Charlie, to help us clarify and expand on this ambition, please explain more, share more about our AI initiatives in our company, and also the positioning of Money Forward Group, especially for the AI market.

Charlie: So what are we up to on the AI front at Money Forward now? So we have a very good strategy, especially for AI agents, AI agent platform, and AI transformation consulting. So let's talk a bit about AI agents. So what are they? So these are smart, autonomous programs that act like high-skilled individuals, especially for back-office tasks. So you can imagine that they handle the tasks by themselves and get smarter over time. So, like an agent suggesting expense claims based on your credit card history or checking for accounting issues.

Next one, why we would like to implement also the AI agent platform. So think of it as an ecosystem where our AI agents can work together with agents from other companies, just like apps on your mobile phone.

It lets us offer a ton of flexibility and convenience to our users.

It's not for our own, but it's for every user who can also use the AI agent.

And the last one is very interesting. So maybe many people know about digital transformation, but some of you may not know the new term AI transformation. We also call this AX.

We learned that truly transforming a business with AI tools is not enough. So we are using our group expertise to help companies become more efficient.

In ways that traditional software just cannot.

Emma: I see. Yeah. AI agent, we are already developing AI agents, right?

Charlie: Yeah.

Emma: Not only one AI agent, correct? We have many products under Money Forward Group. So, we have multiple AI agents.

Charlie: Yeah.

Emma: But still, we try to develop AI platforms. For always constant user focus, the convenience for the users. So, integrate other companies' AI agents as well. This concept itself, I mean, the concept means User Focus concept (value)

Charlie: So we always need our software to align with our MVVC.

Emma: That's true. Our MVVC, has three values, and one of the values is User Focus. This is one of the most important concepts if you work at the Money Forward Group.

So, looking ahead, Charlie, uh, what is our core strength in terms of AI utilization and adoption as we move into this AI era?

Charlie: That's a very key point for Money Forward. How do we compete with our competitors? Mhm. So for the past 13 years, our biggest strength has been our data.

And this is absolutely essential for AI, where we utilize the data from over 17 million individual users and more than 400,000 businesses, and we also have a very good partnership with over 100 financial institutions. So this gives us a huge advantage. This rich, anonymized data, combined with our deep knowledge of our 60-plus services, creates a perfect environment to train our specialized AI agents.

So that other companies cannot do. Because we are using MF-specific relevant data, we can build agents that are simply smarter and more context-aware than what our competitors can just create a generic AI.

Emma: So, it sounds like we have some advantages and strengths in the market to boost these AI initiatives.

Charlie: Yeah.

Emma: Also, we have other initiatives, many other initiatives in Vietnam. Vietnam level. Can you share some of our activities with our audience?

Charlie: At the same time, at the MF size, we are also currently leading some initiative projects and also some very key projects, including some Screening & Matching CV, seat booking system during the hybrid working at the office. So the employee needs to reserve the seat in advance before they come to the office.

On the other hand, we also try to implement the AI technical interview so that we can save a lot of effort for the technical interviewers. And yeah, product management is also very important and a key point for the success of Money Forward. We are also developing the product management AI tool.

Emma: Mhm. Mhm. Oh, thank you very much for sharing. Yes. Uh, through these kinds of activities and also products, I really appreciate you creating the environment where our members feel familiar with using AI.

Emma: And also feeling very close to AI, and then getting normal, natural to use AI. This kind of culture and environment is very crucial for this AI era.

Charlie: Correct. We would also like to become an AI-first culture company very soon.

Emma: Yeah. From his sharing until now, all of you may grasp the idea about our AI initiatives and activities, as well as where we are heading. But once again, could you share our ambition, how we will be, what we want to become?

Charlie: For the future. Yeah. To grasp the thinking stuff. Our ambition for this AI era is very huge. So we are not just aiming to be a DX company anymore. Our goal is to become the number one back-office AI company in Japan. So we want to lead the next generation of back-office and financial service software, moving past simple automation and into a future of true autonomy.

Emma: Mhm. Mhm. Thank you very much. Money Forward's vision is "Money Forward, Move Your Life Forward." And to move your life forward, using AI is cannot be avoided; using AI is definitely crucial, necessary to move our life forward. So this is really like aligned with our MBBC as well.

So thank you very much, Charlie, for coming to this channel and sharing many, many valuable contents.

Charlie: Thank you, Emma, for inviting me here today. And also thank you to all. Just a very quick hint: We are planning to grow the size of the members in the AI department. So if you're really confident and really want to join us, please feel free.

Emma: Yes, feel free to apply for our position. Yeah, correct. Okay. So I hope you enjoy this episode. So, Charlie, to be the next AI number, to become the number one back-office AI company from Japan. Let's make it together.