Delivered on June 22, 2026
How will "calendars" and "events" change in the age of AI? Jorte's Shimohana discusses the future of time-based businesses.
Speakers:
Koichi Shimohana, President and CEO, Jorte Inc.
Affiliation and position information is as of the time of distribution
We welcomed Mr. Shimohana from Jorte as our guest and asked him about the current state of his calendar app "Jorte" and event information platform "Eventia." We discussed how the way we see the city and everyday life will change by digitizing all kinds of "events," from fireworks displays and exhibitions to shopping streets and small personal gatherings. Furthermore, he talked about his vision of redefining the calendar not merely as a schedule management tool, but as a foundational time axis that supports people's behavior, health, and experiences, in light of the significant changes in development and digital business premises brought about by AI.
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The History of the Calendar App "Jorte" and its Expansion into the Event Business
Jorte Co., Ltd. is the provider of "Jorte," a calendar app used by many users worldwide. The CEO, Mr. Shimohana, was originally an engineer, and after becoming independent about 20 years ago, he began developing a calendar app in Japan during the early days of smartphones.
For many years, the company has been widely used as an application supporting personal schedule management. Currently, leveraging this foundation, they are systematically promoting a new area: an "event information platform business." Moving away from their previous system outsourcing-centric structure, they have transformed into a new structure for the development of a time-based business, with calendar functionality and event-related businesses at its core.
The Current State of "Eventia," a New Service Enabling Intuitive Event Search
The company is currently focusing on "Eventia," a service that allows users to intuitively search for events. The greatest feature of this service lies in the comprehensive and high-quality event data cultivated over many years by their subsidiary, Event Bank Co., Ltd., through a thorough "manpower-intensive" approach.
Generally, mechanical data collection using AI struggles to capture local information and small events that haven't been digitized on the web. This company, however, meticulously compiles highly reliable event information from across Japan through diligent verification, establishing a solid position as a data provider to major domestic media and portal sites.
Promoting Regional DX by Digitizing Even Everyday "Small Events"
Mr. Shimohana aims for a world where not only large-scale events like fireworks displays and festivals are digitized, but even extremely everyday, small-scale events, such as a local bakery baking limited-edition bread at a specific time.
Many local shops and amateur event organizers still rely on primitive methods of announcement, such as paper flyers, posters, or posting PDF screenshots on social media. By structuring this local information as digital data and making it easily accessible to everyone, they are working with the tourism industry, local governments, and shopping districts to realize true regional digital transformation (DX) by "visualizing" the motivations behind urban activities and movement.
The Data Infrastructure and Value of an Event Platform in the AI Era
Eventia's ultimate goal is not simply to be a "container (interface)" such as a website or app for users to search for events, but to establish itself as a robust "data platform."
In today's rapidly evolving AI technology, the value of the UI itself that presents information may change, but the value of the correct database that serves as the source for AI reference will not waver. Like Wikipedia, by becoming an "information repository" where reliable information is constantly accumulated, we are pursuing the creation of a system that will become an irreplaceable master of event information even in the next-generation technological environment.
The Structure of the Platform Business and the Construction of an Economic Ecosystem
It is not easy for event information itself to directly generate significant revenue, and many players have struggled to commercialize this area. However, instead of charging excessive fees to information providers, the company focuses on collaboration with the diverse economic activities that occur around the platform.
Around large-scale exhibitions and regional events, a huge amount of "money movement" occurs, including promotion, setup, surrounding restaurants and delivery services. By controlling the very source of event information, we envision building a sustainable economic ecosystem through new user experience-linked fee models, such as "showing information about nearby coffee shops to people who have bought bread," and flexible service collaborations with other industries.
The Evolution of AI and the Transformation of the Development Environment: Changing the Prerequisites of Digital Business
Mr. Shimohana has personally experienced the recent evolution of generative AI from a developer's perspective, and has a strong sense of crisis, as well as even greater expectations, that the structure of the entire IT and digital industry will change drastically within a few years. System development that once required 10 engineers and 1-2 years can now be achieved with high quality in an extremely short period of time, depending on an individual's creativity and initiative, thanks to the use of AI.
This flattening of the development environment means that the advantage of large corporations, which require time for decision-making, is being lost, and an era has arrived where players who can instantly turn ideas into reality have an advantage. The company is going beyond the traditional tool of a calendar and is maximizing the speed of releases to create new value that aligns with the human "time axis."
Summary
This podcast demonstrated the dynamic approach of a company that has long led the calendar market, seizing the massive wave of AI technology to redefine the calendar beyond mere schedule management and build an event platform. No matter how much technology evolves or how digital services change every few years, the value of "events" and the accompanying "experiences and travel" that humans experience in the real world will never disappear.
Regarding the company's future initiatives, their approach of integrating the "time-axis data" accumulated through years of service operation with the "comprehensive data on local events" they have painstakingly built has the potential to evolve into a next-generation behavioral support infrastructure that personally assists people's lifestyles and healthy habits. In the age of AI, where data authenticity and rapid social implementation are crucial, this unique challenge is expected to serve as a model case, stimulating the entire market related to geospatial and location-based businesses, and contributing to the bottom-up improvement and revitalization of the industry as a whole.