New Year’s Greeting - A Year of Sweeping Creative Destruction / Toward the Implementation of AI Transformation

At the beginning of 2026, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for your continued support and patronage.

Looking back, it may be said that over the past several years we have been living in an era of seismic shifts - changes that cannot be fully captured by the word “transformation” alone. Futures once depicted only in works of fiction are now beginning to materialize within our society. Signs of such a shift have also distinctly featured in the awarding of recent Nobel Prizes.

AI as Seen Through the Nobel Prizes

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi for their groundbreaking work in modeling, understanding, and predicting complex systems, including Earth’s climate. In particular, Parisi’s research focused on “spin glasses,” magnetic materials in which atoms are arranged in a disordered manner.

Influenced by spin glass theory, John Hopfield published a seminal paper in 1982. He mathematically demonstrated that the behavior of neurons in the brain is equivalent to the behavior of atoms in spin glasses, thereby explaining the mechanism of memory using the language of physics. In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Hopfield himself, together with Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “father of deep learning.”

That same year, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Demis Hassabis and his colleagues at Google DeepMind for their work on AI-driven protein structure prediction through AlphaFold. Only eight years after AlphaGo amazed the world by defeating the world champion in the game of Go in 2016, AI had moved beyond games to become a “partner to scientists,” tackling some of the most challenging problems in life sciences.

Last year, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for research that demonstrated quantum tunneling and energy quantization using superconducting circuits—quantum phenomena observable at a “visible” scale. This expansion of our ability to control quantum phenomena marks a turning point from theory to implementation. The day may not be far off when quantum technologies that surpass the limits of classical computers further accelerate the evolution of AI.

The Power of Creative Destruction

Although not directly related to AI, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences is also highly relevant to the future AI may bring. The prize was awarded to Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, Joel Mokyr, and others for their research on innovation-driven economic growth.

Through their book The Power of Creative Destruction, Aghion - and colleagues Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel - systematize Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” – that is, the process by which new technologies replace old ones, driving economic renewal and growth - into a modern theoretical framework.

Aghion et. al. describe this process as a persistent conflict between the “new,” driven by innovation and the pursuit of profits, and the “old,” which seeks to protect existing vested interests.

One particularly noteworthy point is the text’s clear response to a common concern in the age of AI: that technological innovation destroys jobs. Historical data from past industrial revolutions and waves of automation show that companies that automated their manufacturing processes did not reduce employment. On the contrary, on a net basis, they created jobs. Automation increases competitiveness and expands market share, ultimately requiring more employees.

Conversely, the true cause of job losses lies not in automation itself, but in the “eviction effect”—falling behind the wave of innovation. Companies that fail to adopt automation and AI lose competitiveness, exit certain markets, and ultimately eliminate jobs.

In other words, history teaches us that embracing AI is not a threat to employment, but rather a necessary condition for protecting our workplaces and economic prosperity.

Creative destruction eliminates old jobs while simultaneously creating more advanced and more human-centered forms of work. AI will be no exception. Rather than fearing destruction, we are now called upon to position ourselves on the side of creation.

What Has Remained Important for Nearly 100 Years

Creative destruction has existed throughout history, but is there anything that remains unchanged across different eras? Harvard University has been exploring this very question since 1938 through the Harvard Study of Adult Development - the world’s longest longitudinal study, tracking the lives of 724 individuals to scientifically uncover what makes people happy.

Robert Waldinger, the study’s fourth director, summarizes the conclusion drawn from this vast body of data as follows:

“It is not wealth, fame, or working relentlessly. What has become abundantly clear is that good relationships are what keep us healthier and happier.”

This truth, at the research’s outset, nearly 100 years ago, remains true today and may continue to hold even in a future where quantum computers and AI are deeply integrated. If so, no matter how sophisticated AI becomes in generating text or producing highly refined images, building trust, sharing empathy, and creating meaningful human connections will remain a uniquely human domain.

In fact, as society becomes increasingly digitized, the value of “human connections” and “communication experiences” is likely to grow even further.

Designing Smarter Communication

At Mitsue-Links, we have long embraced the mission of being a “Smart Communication Design Company,” dedicated to designing outstanding communication through advanced technology.

This mission does not change in the age of AI – we continue to design the communication society needs, using the best technology available to us. On the contrary, with AI now in our hands, our solution potential has expanded considerably.

In 2026, Mitsue-Links will fully promote “AI Transformation.” This is not simply about introducing AI tools. It is a challenge to fundamentally redesign our ways of working, our production processes, and the way we deliver value to our clients – we seek to assume AI as a core premise.

We will entrust to AI what the technology can best support, while we devote even more energy to dialogue with our clients - designing human-centered interfaces, and implementing communication experiences that connect people with people.

Thank you for reading and we sincerely ask for your continued guidance and support in the year ahead.