Rakuten Embeds ‘Brain Twin’ AI Across Its Ecosystem to Deliver Omotenashi-Level Service

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is revolutionizing its digital landscape with the rollout of an advanced “agentic AI” platform—branded as its “Brain Twin”—designed to unify and enhance user experiences across services like shopping, fintech, travel, telecom, and entertainment. Built to intuit needs and act proactively, this AI system aims to redefine service through true personalization.

Scheduled to debut on the Rakuten Ichiba marketplace this autumn, the Brain Twin will allow customers to interact naturally—via voice, image, or text—to find products, refine searches, and explore services tailored to their behaviors and purchase history. For example, a shopper could snap or submit a photo of a pair of pants, and the AI would recommend similar items in the desired price range without a single keyword search. It anticipates preferences, learns from interactions, and becomes smarter with each user touchpoint.

Empowering Small Merchants While Elevating User Experiences

Beyond improving customer journeys, this AI platform offers a suite of tools that support small and medium-sized businesses. The beta tools currently available include chat-based assistants for handling customer inquiries, AI-driven image editors for professional product visuals, and AI analysis tools that distill sales data into actionable insights. These services help sellers manage operations more efficiently even with limited technical resources.

Rakuten’s agentic AI architecture combines its own language models—deeply tuned for Japanese context—with optimized third-party AI systems, striking a balance between cultural fluency and computational efficiency. By enabling intuitive, multimodal interactions and protecting user and merchant trust, Rakuten positions the Brain Twin as more than a digital assistant—it’s a personalized, intelligent gateway into a seamless ecosystem.