Ken Wakasa, former Executive Officer, Group CTO, and Managing Director of Mercari India, shared his views on organizational development in the AI era for Japanese companies.
Former Mercari CTO: Japan's High-Context Culture Hinders Software Development in the AI Era
This article is a translation. Read the Japanese original
Wakasa pointed out challenges in software development environments caused by Japan's unique "high-context" culture—a culture where communication is achieved by "reading the air" without explicit explanation. He noted that while the traditional manufacturing technique of suriawase (adjustment/coordination) was supported by tacit knowledge based on years of experience, in modern software development where standardization is advancing, this person-dependent culture makes business differentiation difficult.
In particular, he stated that the evolution of generative AI is forcing a change in this situation. While Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate high performance in environments where explicit specifications and constraints are provided, they struggle with ambiguous instructions and implicit context. Therefore, he pointed out the necessity of transitioning business workflows into a low-context structure—that is, one that is clearly verbalized.
Furthermore, from the perspective of adapting to global development environments, he stated that the expectation of "understanding without being told" does not work when collaborating with engineers from different cultures and languages. He concluded that Japanese companies are required to transition from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.
Sources
- コードが「新しいアセンブリ言語」になるAI時代、日本の「職人気質」がソフトウェア開発の足かせになる理由 （ITmedia AI+、2026-09-30）
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