How SoftBank Uses RPA and Generative AI to Save 4,500 FTEs Annually
SoftBank Corp. is Japan’s largest telecommunications operator and a global technology investor with ambitions far beyond carrier services. Facing a bottleneck in scaling automation beyond early RPA deployments, SoftBank launched the ‘Digital Worker 4,000 Project’—a top-management-led initiative to automate cross-functional business processes using Automation Anywhere alongside Salesforce, Office365, and Google integrations. The effort redirected 4,500 FTE-equivalents of annual labor toward value-added work and generated 52,000 generative AI improvement proposals from employees in just ten days.
Impact
4,500
FTE-equivalents saved annually
85%
Reduction in recruitment hours
50%
Reduction in mobile service registration time
700 hours
AI call volume prediction savings
52,000
Employee generative AI proposals submitted
Challenge
SoftBank had deployed RPA successfully in isolated pockets since 2016, but could not scale automation across the enterprise—manual processes were consuming millions of hours annually and the existing task-based approach could not address complex, multi-system workflows.
Solution
SoftBank launched the ‘Digital Worker 4,000 Project’ using Automation Anywhere to automate cross-functional workflows across Salesforce, Office365, and Google Workspace, paired with a company-wide employee training program to drive bottom-up automation identification and adoption.
Tools & Technologies
What Leaders Say
“We aimed to inspire a fresh sensibility through the experience of technology… we have been realizing a work style and workplace where employees and technology are integrated together.”
“Generative AI will continue to merge with existing technologies. I see this trend accelerating the realization of end-to-end process automation, moving away from automation based on task.”
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Full Story
SoftBank Corp. serves tens of millions of subscribers across Japan and operates as a strategic technology investor globally. The company began its automation journey in 2016 with RPA, but scaling that initial work proved harder than expected. Isolated deployments, inconsistent training, and a task-by-task approach left the company short of its goal: transforming how employees experience their work.
The bottleneck was structural. Automation tools existed, but they weren’t embedded into the fabric of how teams operated. Manual, repetitive processes—from call volume prediction to mobile service registration—continued to consume capacity that SoftBank needed for higher-value activities. The company set an ambitious target: save 7.7 million hours per year while simultaneously improving both customer and employee experience.
SoftBank launched the ‘Digital Worker 4,000 Project,’ led directly by top management. The initiative used Automation Anywhere to orchestrate complex cross-functional processes spanning Salesforce, Office365, Google Workspace, and internal systems. Alongside deployment, SoftBank ran a company-wide upskilling program to give employees the skills to identify and implement their own automations—turning automation from an IT initiative into a workforce capability.
The results went beyond the original metrics. Recruiting evaluations now take 85% fewer hours. Mobile service registration is 50% faster. AI-powered call volume prediction saves 700 hours. And when SoftBank held an internal generative AI ideas contest, employees submitted 52,000 proposals in just ten days—a signal that the culture had fundamentally shifted toward technology-first problem solving.
SoftBank is now moving beyond task-level automation toward end-to-end process automation powered by generative AI and agentic systems. The company is testing AI-generated insights for strategic decision-making and intends to extend this infrastructure to customers—positioning itself not just as a telecom carrier, but as a digital transformation enabler for its enterprise base.
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