Panasonic is struggling to develop new activities that could ensure its future growth. The launch of an artificial intelligence app for consumers is delayed and a home assistance service launched in 2021 will be discontinued in January.
Panasonic announced Umi, a family-friendly artificial intelligence service, at the CES technology show in Las Vegas last January. The Japanese company presented a plan to increase the sales share of AI-based companies to 30% by 2035, tripling the level of fiscal 2024, with Umi as one of the pillars.
But at an investor event on December 2, the group’s CEO, Yuki Kusumi, said the service would not launch this year as planned.
“We have to make a final decision regarding Umi,” he said.
Umi uses artificial intelligence trained based on family members’ preferences and lifestyle habits through an app, providing diet and exercise suggestions to promote a healthy lifestyle. The idea was to use Claude, an artificial intelligence chatbot from the American startup Anthropic.
In May, Kusumi said he received news from Yoky Matsuoka, the Panasonic director responsible for Umi development, that the project was about 80 percent complete and that the next step would be improvement.
But at this month’s event, there was no mention of plans for Umi, and Kusumi’s reference to making a “final decision” was not explained. Panasonic’s January 2026 CES exhibit, the contents of which were announced on Friday, focuses on B2B areas such as energy storage systems for data centers and does not include Umi.
Kusumi said Panasonic did not intend to stop the expansion of its artificial intelligence business just because the company was undertaking structural reforms, which aim to cut 10,000 jobs and optimize low-profit businesses. But Umi isn’t the only new project in trouble.
Panasonic will close Yohana, a home assistance service offered through a subsidiary since 2021, on January 30.
“The decision was made based on an overall assessment of the business environment,” the company said.
Yohana consisted of an app for requesting tasks such as shopping and travel arrangements, which were carried out by a dedicated team. The service debuted in the United States in 2021 and in Japan in 2022, initially limited to the Tokyo metropolitan area, before expanding nationwide in June 2024.
The CEO of the subsidiary responsible for Yohana is Matsuoka, the same executive who runs Umi. She was previously a vice president at Google and was recruited directly by former Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga. She was expected to bring Silicon Valley agility and software development to Panasonic.
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