In the Age of AI, What Do We Work For?— The Origins of VURA and Enterprise Redefinition
- Naoki Kadowaki
- Aug 12
- 8 min read
In the Age of AI, What Do We Work For?
— The Origins of VURA and Enterprise Redefinition
AI is rapidly transforming the way we work.
Information gathering, analysis, document creation, programming, and the organization of ideas—tasks that once required significant time, experience, and expertise—can now be supported by AI at remarkable speed.
And this transformation has only just begun.
As AI continues to advance, its capabilities will increasingly extend into areas that we once believed could only be handled by humans.
So what lies beyond this transformation?
When AI becomes capable of performing much of the work we do today, what will we work for?
Why will companies exist?
And what will leaders be responsible for?
These are among the fundamental questions that led to the founding of VURA Capital Innovation Holdings.
In our newly released Featured Conversation, I discuss the origins of VURA, the changing relationship between companies and people in the age of AI, and a future of management in which humans and AI create future value together.
AI Is Changing More Than Just “Work”
When we talk about AI, the conversation often begins with efficiency.
How many hours can AI save?
How many processes can be automated?
How much cost can be reduced?
These are, of course, important questions.
Improving productivity is essential to business management. There is significant value in using AI to make operations more efficient and allowing people to devote more of their time to higher-value activities.
But I believe the fundamental transformation brought about by AI goes much further.
As AI democratizes knowledge, analysis, and execution, it will become increasingly difficult for both companies and individuals to differentiate themselves simply by what they know, how well they can analyze information, or how quickly they can execute.
Some of the capabilities that companies have historically relied upon as sources of competitive advantage will increasingly become commoditized by AI.
As a result, the basis of competition itself will change.
From optimization to value definition.
The central question will no longer be only:
“How efficiently can we do this?”
Instead, we will increasingly need to ask:
“What should we do in the first place?”
“Why should we do it?”
“For whom are we creating value?”
“What kind of future are we trying to create?”
The more capable AI becomes at generating answers, the more important it becomes for humans to determine which questions to ask, what goals to pursue, and what we define as valuable.
That, I believe, is one of the most important shifts of the AI era.
Why Do Companies Exist?
This shift has profound implications for management.
Traditional management has often assumed the existence of established markets and businesses, focusing on how to improve efficiency, strengthen competitive advantage, and maximize profitability within those structures.
But in an era of fundamental change, we must question the assumptions themselves.
Why does our company really exist?
What is the true value we provide to customers and society?
Is our current business still the best way to create that value?
Is our organization designed to realize the future we seek?
Is capital being allocated toward the future—or simply according to the logic of the past?
These questions must be reconsidered.
Transforming a company is not simply about implementing a new system.
It is not simply about adopting AI.
And it is not simply about redesigning an organizational chart.
It means reconsidering the enterprise itself from the perspective of the future.
This thinking led to the concept that VURA calls Enterprise Redefinition.
What Is Enterprise Redefinition?
Enterprise Redefinition is not about making incremental adjustments to a company in response to change.
It is about redefining the enterprise for the future—from its reason for existence to its business, organization, capital, and management.
At VURA, we consider Enterprise Redefinition through five core dimensions:
Purpose, Value, Organization, Capital, and Governance.
Why does the enterprise exist?
What value does it create, and for whom?
What kind of organization is required to create that value?
Where should capital be allocated?
And how should the enterprise be governed and led?
These are not separate questions.
Changing Purpose alone will not transform a company if the business remains unchanged.
Changing the business alone will not create sustainable transformation if the organization and capital allocation remain anchored in the past.
Introducing AI alone will rarely create value beyond optimization if the organization has not defined what AI is ultimately meant to achieve.
That is why the enterprise must be understood as an integrated system and redefined as a whole.
This is also why VURA states:
Invest. Operate. Redefine.
We do not intend to remain outside companies and simply make recommendations.
We invest capital.
We participate in management.
And we take responsibility for execution.
We do not stop at concepts.
That is the form of enterprise transformation VURA seeks to pursue.
Will Human Value Decline in the Age of AI?
As AI advances, there is growing debate over whether human value itself will diminish.
I do not believe that is necessarily the case.
Instead, I believe the definition of human value will change.
The scarcity of certain capabilities may decline:
memorizing large amounts of knowledge,
executing predefined processes accurately,
organizing information,
and performing routine analysis.
AI is increasingly capable of supporting or performing these activities.
At the same time, other human capabilities may become more important:
asking meaningful questions,
creating meaning,
imagining the future,
empathizing with others,
connecting seemingly unrelated ideas,
choosing what matters,
and deciding, through our own will, which future we want to pursue.
That is why we do not need to frame the future as a competition between AI and humans.
The question is not:
AI or humans?
The more important question is:
What can AI and humans create together?
Rather than using AI simply to replace people, we can use AI to expand human potential.
And humans can increasingly focus on the areas in which human agency, imagination, empathy, and purpose matter most.
That is the future I believe we can create.
The Role of the CEO Will Also Change
The same transformation applies to management itself.
Traditionally, executives have gathered information, analyzed it, and made countless individual decisions.
But as AI agents become increasingly capable of autonomously analyzing, deciding, and executing, leaders will no longer need to remain inside every operational loop.
This leads to another concept we have developed at VURA:
Human-on-the-Loop Management.
Instead of remaining “in” every individual loop, leaders move “on” the loop—designing, directing, and overseeing the system as a whole.
Why are we using AI?
What value are we trying to create?
What should AI be allowed to decide autonomously?
Where must humans remain responsible?
Where should capital be allocated?
And ultimately, which future should the enterprise choose?
The role of leadership will increasingly shift from producing individual answers to defining the direction of the enterprise as a whole.
As AI becomes more intelligent, the role of the CEO does not disappear.
What we require from leaders changes.
Why I Founded VURA
Throughout my career, I have worked across technology, management, enterprise transformation, investment, and capital.
Through these experiences, I came to believe something strongly:
Companies often possess far greater potential than they are currently able to realize.
They have talented people.
Technology.
Customers.
Brands.
Capital.
And yet many organizations are unable to create the value they are truly capable of creating because these resources remain fragmented.
That is why VURA seeks to reconnect business, technology, and capital.
We invest.
We enter management.
And we redefine the enterprise.
Our goal is not simply to improve enterprise value in the short term.
Our mission is:
To increase the number of enterprises that continuously create future value.
A company can reconsider why it exists.
It can define the value that will be needed in the future.
It can translate that value into businesses, organizations, and investments.
And as that enterprise grows, new value can emerge for employees, customers, partners, communities, and society.
We want to connect the creation of future enterprise value with the creation of a better future for society.
How Do We Understand Future Value?
Future value cannot be fully understood through today's financial statements alone.
Markets that do not yet exist.
Technologies that are still emerging.
Social challenges that may one day be solved.
Changes in human values and behavior.
We must ask how companies can engage with these developments and create new forms of value.
As one attempt to observe this process, VURA publishes the VURA Future Index (VFI).
We do not look only at fluctuations in corporate market capitalization.
We examine areas connected to the future of humanity and society:
Longevity.Planetary Sustainability.Quality of Life.Frontier.
The VFI is designed as a kind of thermometer for future value creation—a way to continuously observe how capital and value creation are evolving across these domains.
We cannot predict the future perfectly.
But we can observe where capital is moving, what technologies are emerging, and what new forms of value are beginning to take shape.
And rather than simply observing the future, we can choose to participate in creating it.
That is the philosophy behind VURA.
From Theory to Practice
At VURA, we are developing not only Enterprise Redefinition, but also Future Value Theory and other management concepts for the age of AI.
We publish Working Papers, develop theoretical frameworks, and have built the AI Management Library to systematically organize emerging management knowledge for this new era.
But research and publishing are not ends in themselves.
Our philosophy is:
From theory to knowledge.From knowledge to practice.
We develop new management ideas through research.
We structure those ideas and share them with society.
Then we apply them through investment and management participation in real enterprises.
The insights gained through practice can then be returned to research, allowing the theories themselves to evolve.
We believe this cycle matters.
There is no established answer yet for what management should become in the age of AI.
That is precisely why we need to ask our own questions, develop theories, put them into practice, test them, and continue learning.
In the Age of AI, What Do We Work For?
Let us return to the original question.
In the age of AI, what do we work for?
I do not believe there is one universal answer.
And perhaps that is precisely the point.
In an era when AI can generate an increasing number of “answers,” humans have greater freedom—and greater responsibility—to decide what we value and what kind of future we want to choose.
The same is true for companies.
Enterprises do not have to remain trapped within definitions inherited from the past.
They can reconsider why they exist.
They can define value for themselves.
And they can create their own future.
That is why we need redefinition.
True value does not come from optimization.It comes from redefinition.
VURA Capital Innovation Holdings will continue to invest, participate in management, and redefine enterprises in order to increase the number of companies that continuously create future value.
We believe in a future in which humans and AI create together, expanding each other's possibilities.
And beyond that, we believe a more prosperous society can emerge.
Redefining Enterprise Value. Creating the Future.
Featured Conversation
“In the Age of AI, What Do We Work For?”
In this conversation, I discuss the origins of VURA, the changing relationship between companies and people in the age of AI, the future that humans and AI can create together, and what management can become in this new era.
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