The Customized Society

Liberation from Mass Production

Our society and economy have long been dominated by the paradigm of "mass production." Making identical products in large quantities to lower costs and provide them to more people—this principle has been the foundation of economic growth since the Industrial Revolution. Now, however, technological innovations led by AI are fundamentally changing this paradigm.

I've personally experienced this transformation in software development. Development work that would have taken two months just a year ago can now be completed in about a week, thanks to AI-assisted code generation. And this productivity improvement will only accelerate in the coming years.

What's crucial to understand is that this change isn't limited to the software industry. The dramatic increase in productivity will eventually spread to all industries. And when it does, it will overturn our fundamental assumption about the "universality" of products and services.

From Universality to Individual Optimization

Why have we created "universal" products until now? Because providing a single product to many people allowed us to reduce costs. However, as production costs dramatically decrease, this premise collapses. Products and services optimized for specific individuals or organizations are inherently superior.

Personalized products and services have the decisive advantage of being "just right" for their users. They include only the necessary functions, perfectly implemented, and are optimally designed for each person's preferences and usage patterns. This is the essence of the "Customized Society."

This transformation will begin in the software field. Applications that function independently for individuals, such as calendar apps and storage management tools, will feature UI/UX optimized for each user. Interestingly, even platforms that require network effects, such as social media, will adopt a "one product, many codes" approach—sharing underlying data and processes while optimizing interfaces and functions for each individual.

The Power of Data Driving Customization

Detailed data about individuals and organizations is essential for realizing a customized society. If AI understands how you live, what values you hold, and what preferences you have, it can provide optimal products and services without requiring detailed instructions from you.

The same applies to businesses. By accumulating data on an organization's specific operational styles, decision-making processes, and communication patterns, companies can acquire more appropriate customized solutions. Going forward, transferring tacit knowledge and expertise from humans to AI will become a source of competitive advantage.

The key is not just collecting data, but structuring and contextualizing it. Issues such as data ownership, portability, and privacy will become even more critical challenges in a customized society.

From Static Products to Dynamic Architecture

As an evolved form of the customized society, we should also pay attention to the concept of "dynamic architecture." This is the idea that products and services don't maintain fixed forms but change their shape in real-time according to usage situations, environments, and user states.

For instance, clothing that changes its properties according to body temperature and activity, living spaces that adjust to residents' preferences and health conditions, and meals optimized for the day's physical condition and activities—products will increasingly become "dynamic" and "responsive."

In healthcare, we'll see treatment simulations based on individual physiological digital models and preventive medicine that predicts health risks from behavioral patterns, environmental factors, and genetic information. In education, curricula that continuously optimize based on learners' cognitive styles, comprehension levels, and interests will become the norm.

Transformation of Community Consciousness

The transition to a customized society will also bring significant changes to our "sense of community." The shared experiences formed when many people used the same products and consumed the same media have already begun to weaken due to the personalization of content through social media.

The customization of products and services will accelerate this trend. However, this may not necessarily be a "problem to be solved" but rather a natural evolution of society.

The form of community itself will change, with more diverse and fluid forms emerging: communities bound by common values and purposes rather than shared physical objects, temporary collectives formed for specific purposes, and new communities based on shared experiences in virtual spaces.

The New Role of Humans

In a world where machine productivity exceeds that of humans, what role will be demanded of humans? It is precisely "understanding humans." There lies the new value of humanity—grasping customers' potential needs, understanding individual contexts and values, and embodying them in the form of customized products and services.

Additionally, it will be important for us to become "curators of values," clarifying our own values and designing frameworks for choice to address the new challenge of decision fatigue (choice paradox) brought about by infinite options.

Technology will increasingly become an "invisible presence," designed around human experiences. There, unprecedented creativity and efficiency will be realized through collaboration between humans and AI.

Conclusion

The customized society is an inevitable consequence of the productivity improvements brought by AI. In a world liberated from the economics of mass production, products and services completely optimized for individuals and organizations will become the norm, dramatically improving our quality of life.

To adapt to this change, we need to understand the importance of data, deepen our understanding of ourselves and our organizations, and explore new forms of community. While the customized society will be realized through technology, humans will always be at its center—along with the essential human values of creativity, empathy, and understanding.

In a society liberated from the paradigm of mass production, the individuality and diversity of each person will be respected and expressed more than ever before. This will lead to the realization of a richer and more fulfilling society.