Akemi Tsunagawa
Person
Akemi Tsunagawa is an entrepreneur and the founder of Bespoke, a company known for its development of AI technology. She was featured as a guest on the podcast 'This Week in Startups' to discuss her journey of building the company.
What Akemi Tsunagawa has said on podcasts
28 statements
Investors considered AI chatbot communication technically and culturally infeasible in 2015.
“they do not think it was possible technically and also culturally”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 3:43
Bespoke built its chatbot technology internally.
“We actually made it all in house.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 5:52
Japan is now an unusually affordable, high-quality tourism destination.
“now I think it's one of the cheapest, like the most affordable destination. You still get high quality.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 6:54
Overtourism has affected Japan since roughly 2017 or 2018.
“over tourism has been a problem, not just recently, it's been a problem probably even about like since 2017, 2018”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 8:16
Japan loses roughly 700,000–800,000 people annually, approaching one million.
“every year we lose population equivalent of Yamanashi Prefecture. That is around 700,000 to 800,000. And then this number would go up rapidly to 1 million.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 14:22
Having a family has become a luxury in Japan.
“having family has become a luxury”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 15:40
Tokyo wage growth has not kept pace with inflation.
“In Tokyo, wages have not gone up as much as it's not keeping up with inflation.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 15:44
Japan’s tax benefits are insufficient to make starting families affordable.
“I don't think those are enough in my personal experience.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 16:32
Japan lacks adequate child-support systems for single parents.
“There are not enough child support system here, I feel like.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 16:56
Bespoke uses smart glasses to record skilled work for multilingual vocational training.
“we send out smart glasses and then have the wallpaper specialists put on the glasses and record how they do things”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 21:45
Bespoke converts recorded procedures into multilingual training videos and quizzes.
“this video turns into a training video in different languages. And then once you finish watching the video, each video it generates kind of like a test, like quiz”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 22:11
Japanese shipyards’ labor shortages have reduced annual production from nine ships to six despite three years of orders.
“these shipbuilding companies have orders booked for the next three years and some of them used to produce, let's say nine ships annually, but now their production capacity has gone down so much and now they can only produce six ships per year simply because they don't have enough people”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 29:23
Language barriers cause foreign workers to violate local garbage-disposal rules.
“non Japanese workers won't follow the local rules because they can't read the instructions”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 31:39
Japanese law requires daily scaffold inspections, but companies lack resources to comply.
“the law requires you to inspect manually every day before you use it, no company has resources to do so”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 34:59
Companies almost always skip required scaffold inspections.
“They skip it almost 100 of the time.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 35:10
Bespoke’s planned robot can autonomously inspect scaffold joints for safety.
“The robots climb up scaffolds by itself, grabs the joint, shakes it, and then record each joint is safe or not”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 36:03
Paint-thickness inspections for large ships consume over 1,000 human hours.
“Some companies that produce ship over like 200 meters, they would be spending more than thousand human hours to do the paint thickness inspection.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 36:53
Robots can easily automate large-ship paint-thickness inspections.
“That can be easily automated with the robot.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 37:14
Human-like chatbot communication increases user engagement in tourism.
“human like communication actually increases the user engagement”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 40:20
Emergency-response chatbots should provide evacuation addresses immediately without conversational filler.
“For emergency response, you want the evacuation center address as soon as possible. So you don't want any chat chat”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 41:17
Government contracts can collateralize loans faster than raising venture capital.
“we can use the government contract as the collaterals, which is much faster than speaking to investors”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 45:21
Profitable startups can secure loans in Japan.
“As long as you're profitable, you can secure loans.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 46:50
Bespoke’s long-term loans carried approximately 1% interest.
“it's like 1% interest rate or something.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 47:41
Japan will remain Bespoke’s hottest market for roughly the next two years.
“for the next two years or so, Japan is the hottest market”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 48:51
Younger Japanese generations generally do not want to own factories, unlike Bespoke.
“Younger generations don't want to be factory owners. We want to be factory owners.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 49:55
Young people leave rural Japanese towns and do not return because jobs are unavailable.
“Once they leave, they don't come back because there's no job.”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 52:04
Bespoke replaced an engineer’s role with AI agents, accelerating code review.
“we didn't replace her because we just decided, hey, everyone can use AI agent. The code review is now faster”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 53:59
Akemi says AI now performs every job at Bespoke.
“every job in the company is now done by AI”
Open the episode · How Bespoke faked AI until it actually worked (w/ Akemi Tsunagawa) | E2320Listen at 56:42
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
