NTT DATA has unveiled a groundbreaking proof of concept (PoC) for Kao Corporation, one of Japan’s leading cosmetics and personal care brands, demonstrating how AI can drastically speed product development research.
Dubbed “AI Consumers”, the PoC leveraged AI models to simulate consumer behavior, creating dynamic personas and an AI interviewer that can execute product research tasks traditionally handled by human teams. By integrating Kao’s consumer data—including past surveys, purchase history, and social media interactions—NTT DATA showed it was possible to reduce the research timeline from 1.5 months to just 0.5 days, a staggering 99% reduction.
Speed and agility in consumer insight
In today’s fast-moving consumer market, weekly trends are replacing monthly or quarterly cycles. For Kao, which launches seasonal makeup products, rapid consumer insight is critical. Traditional research methods require significant time for survey design, respondent recruitment, and fieldwork—constraints that limit agility.
“This PoC has demonstrated that AI can achieve significant gains in speed in the product development process while ensuring quality equal to or even exceeding that of human output,” said Mizuho Mitake, Head of Second Industry Business Sector at NTT DATA Japan. “We will expand these results beyond product development into broader marketing operations.”
How AI Consumers work
The system creates multiple AI-generated consumer personas, each with distinct preferences and behavioral patterns. An AI interviewer then interacts with these personas, testing hypotheses and generating insights, all while remaining consistent with results that traditional methods would produce. This approach not only slashes timelines but also reduces the operational workload associated with recruiting participants and conducting surveys.
Beyond cosmetics: scaling AI-native research
NTT DATA’s initiative is part of a broader push toward Smart AI Agent® capabilities—AI agents that autonomously extract, organize, and execute tasks across business operations. By embedding AI into consumer research and marketing, companies can accelerate decision-making, respond to trends faster, and free human teams to focus on higher-value activities.
Internally, NTT DATA is also using AI to boost software development productivity and enhance AI literacy, demonstrating a dual strategy of applying AI both for clients and within its own operations.
This PoC signals a potential transformation for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and other industries: AI-driven research may soon replace months-long cycles with real-time, data-driven decision-making, fundamentally altering how products reach the market.
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