Global leadership, local action: What Japan’s path to responsible AI can teach us

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a transformative force reshaping economies and societies. The pressing question now is how to pursue innovation while securing trust, safety and fairness across diverse national contexts.

Japan offers a unique perspective, blending industrial strength, cultural values and regulatory pragmatism. The country’s recent initiatives, including the AI Act and the Hiroshima AI Process, demonstrate a commitment to promoting innovation, mitigating risks and aligning with international discussions.

Japan’s AI policies also reflect broader global efforts to advance responsible AI governance, as seen in a recent World Economic Forum playbook.

Japan acknowledges its relative lag in AI development. To address this, it has adopted a strategy to mitigate AI-related risks without imposing excessive regulation, relying instead on a combination of existing legal frameworks and soft-law guidelines.

Japan’s AI Act, formally known as the Act on Promotion of Research and Development and Utilization of Artificial Intelligence-related Technology, was enacted in 2025, outlining a national strategy for AI development and governance, emphasising ethical use, innovation and international collaboration.

The Act integrates principles from the Hiroshima AI Process – a Group of Seven (G7) initiative that promotes shared values, including transparency and international cooperation in AI governance.

Transparency is an important pillar of the AI Act and other soft laws, including Japan’s AI Guidelines for Businesses, which encourages companies to disclose how AI systems operate, how data is collected and the accountability mechanisms, although as guidance only.

The AI Act does not mandate disclosure or explainability, thereby limiting the enforceability of these principles.

Japan’s private sector is actively facilitating responsible AI practices. The AI Governance Association, a sector-agnostic consortium of over 100 enterprises, provides tools for self-assessing AI governance maturity.

These tools, known as AI Governance Navi, aim to help organizations identify gaps, improve practices and share knowledge across industries.

Japan recognizes the importance of preparing its workforce for the AI era. Companies such as NTT Data, Fujitsu and Sony Group are equipping their employees with AI-related skills.

Collaborative efforts between Japan and the United States are also underway to enhance engineers’ capabilities in AI and semiconductors.

Despite Japan’s notable progress, key challenges persist, particularly in domains where a guidance-based approach lacks the strength and accountability of binding standards:

To effectively utilize data, it is necessary to share and collaborate across organizational boundaries and jurisdictions. However, information management practices in Japan have often focused on securing data at the individual system level within companies.

To ensure data security while maximizing utilization, robust data governance mechanisms are essential. Organizations need to determine whether to transfer data across borders or permit access while keeping data within a jurisdiction.

Japan’s public-private collaboration approach reflects a preference for responsible business conduct, stakeholder engagement and agile updates. The AI Act of Japan has been praised widely as a pragmatic legal framework.

However, without legal mandates, companies may interpret principles in a self-serving way or ignore them altogether. This could create arbitrage opportunities for reckless actors. It may be necessary to balance voluntary engagement with effective enforcement.

Japan’s approach is shaped by cultural values such as harmony, trust and long-term relationships. At the same time, AI technologies and businesses operate globally.

Sharing these values with international stakeholders and coordinating actions entail both challenges and opportunities for global leadership to adopt a balanced approach.

The Forum’s AI Playbook: Advancing Responsible AI Innovation provides a practical framework for embedding responsible AI across strategy, governance and implementation.

It emphasises long-term planning, data integrity, transparency, technological enablement and workforce readiness as foundations for sustainable and trustworthy AI adoption.

Japan’s progress in AI governance demonstrates how these principles can be adapted nationally.

The AI Act of Japan, underpinned by the Hiroshima AI Process, sets out an ethical, innovation-driven strategy supported by transparency requirements and public–private collaboration.

Initiatives such as the AI Governance Navi reflect Japan’s focus on accountable scaling and human-centred innovation.

Based on the playbook’s recommendations, Japan could strengthen its AI governance by building interoperable data frameworks that enable secure, cross-sector collaboration while safeguarding privacy and sovereignty. Establishing trusted data intermediaries, shared infrastructures and regulatory sandboxes would foster responsible data use and innovation.

To enhance accountability without stifling flexibility, Japan could complement its cooperative governance model with measurable compliance mechanisms, such as standardized reporting, certification schemes and incentive-based enforcement, to ensure consistent adoption of ethical standards.

Finally, by embedding its cultural values of harmony and trust into global governance efforts, such as the Hiroshima AI Process and aligning domestic standards with international frameworks, Japan can help shape a balanced, globally interoperable model for responsible AI governance.

Together, Japan’s advances and gaps reflect the playbook's dual message: responsible AI requires national leadership and international coherence.

By reinforcing data governance, balancing voluntary and enforceable measures and translating its cultural principles into interoperable global standards, Japan is well positioned to lead in shaping a resilient, human-centric model for AI governance.

AI governance succeeds when global principles are translated into local action. Japan’s approach – rooted in guidance-based collaboration and cultural values of trust and harmony – illustrates how inclusive engagement can drive responsible innovation without heavy-handed regulation.

Its model contrasts with Europe’s legal frameworks and the market-driven US approach, offering a balanced path that emphasises shared accountability and broad industry participation.

Yet, sustaining credibility requires complementing voluntary efforts with enforceable measures that promote transparency and ensure accountability. Aligning flexible governance with clear legal standards can help bridge global expectations and domestic realities.

As the leaders at the Forum’s Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos, Switzerland, prepare to address the transformative convergence of AI and other frontier technologies, Japan’s experience underscores the importance of uniting global guidance with local insight.

To ensure innovation delivers inclusive and sustainable progress, leaders must deepen international cooperation, harmonize standards and invest in human capital. The call to action is clear: governance must evolve as rapidly as technology itself, anchored in trust, adaptability, cultural significance and shared global purpose.