RECRUIT SITE RECRUIT SITE Where there is no textbook, we write the first page.
Take on the unknown,
and create the standard itself
Since ChatGPT arrived in 2022, the rise of Gemini, Claude, Manus and many other AI systems
has brought both management and marketing to a genuine turning point.
Itera, Inc. is a company that redefines what marketing means in the AI era.
As AI shifts the ground beneath us, what used to be obvious no longer holds,
and every company is being asked to change.
And the first thing that matters is measurement.
The subject of search has moved from people to AI.
Whether or not AI cites you now shapes the entrance to your revenue.
Yet in this field, no shared way of measuring exists.
So we started with measurement.
We observe 900 queries across 30 industries every week and publish it free, as a shared asset for the industry.
In a field with no textbook, nobody knows the right answer.
All that exists is the ability to iterate fast and check the difference.
To make measurable
what no one has measured yet.
Will you take on the unknown with us?
From Japan,to a tech company that represents the world.
Takayuki Muto, Representative Director & CEO
As AI has developed, the methods of marketing and the way information reaches people have changed explosively. Yet for all that convenience, understanding AI correctly and connecting it to results in your own business demands considerable knowledge and specialist skill.
The subject of search is moving from people to AI. In an era where AI summarises and recommends, whether or not AI cites you now shapes the entrance to your revenue. And yet no shared way of measuring this exists.
We act as our clients' assistant: measuring how they are seen by AI, reporting the results in terms anyone can act on, and helping with improvement and execution.
By spreading the new possibilities that AI has created, we want to make marketing that delivers results the norm, and to contribute to the development of the society that comes next.
It has been twelve years since I entered the world of digital marketing.
In 2018 I founded TriHatch Inc. What we built was MEOcheki, a SaaS product for measuring rankings in MEO — map search optimisation.
Even then, there was no shortage of companies promising to bring customers to physical stores. But there was almost no way to measure whether any of it was actually working. Tactics were being sold on instinct and experience, with the effect unknown. That was the situation.
So before selling tactics, we started by building the tool that measures them.
MEOcheki was eventually adopted by more than 100,000 stores. The company went through a partial sale to Vector Inc., spent three years as a consolidated subsidiary, and then exited a second time through an M&A with GMO TECH Holdings.
On measurement, I believe MEOcheki did its job.
It could make visible where a store actually ranked.
But it never quite reached the improvement that should follow measurement.
You could produce the ranking — but then what should you do next?
Answering that was left, in the end, to the client themselves or to the experience and instinct of an agency.
We handed over the tool without seeing the result through.
That regret stayed with me.
After the sale, I will be honest: taking a break was an option.
But given how fast AI was moving, and after long discussions with Takenouchi, our COO, I decided to start the next business without pausing.
You ask ChatGPT about your own company and your name does not come up.
Nobody has an answer for why, or for what would change it.
There is not even a way to measure whether you appear at all.
The view from 2018 lined up exactly.
Only this time it is not one narrow field like footfall for physical stores.
Search itself — the mechanism by which people reach information — is changing.
The same structure had appeared in front of me again, at a far greater scale.
This time, we would not stop at measuring.
Measurement, improvement and execution, delivered through a single product.
To do that, we had to build from zero once more.
And so, in 2026, I founded Itera, Inc.
What is happening now has exactly the same structure as back then.
Since generative AI arrived with ChatGPT in 2022, Gemini, Claude, Manus and many others have followed. We have moved from an era where people looked at a list of results and chose for themselves, to one where AI summarises and recommends.
For companies, whether or not AI cites you now shapes the entrance to your revenue. And yet nobody has decided what "better" even means here. When tactics run ahead of any standard, results come down to luck.
So we started with measurement again. LLMOcheki is our agent for measuring and improving AI search optimisation (LLMO). We observe 900 queries across 30 industries every week, record how they move, and publish it free as a shared asset for the industry.
There is another reason I started Itera.
In my previous role, supporting customer acquisition for many companies, I saw countless businesses with overwhelming track records in Japan whose existence was simply not being communicated properly.
In an era where AI summarises and recommends, this problem has become far more serious. Much of the information AI references is written in English, so a track record built in Japanese is not recognised by AI as it stands. A company ranked first in Japan never appears in an AI answer at all. That is genuinely happening.
And the work of building the standard for measuring this is, right now, being led from outside Japan. If the standard is decided elsewhere alone, neither how people search in Japanese nor how Japanese companies appear will be reflected in it.
I wanted to build that from Japan.
From here, this is addressed to you, reading this.
I have been in this industry for twelve years. I have sold two companies and delivered a product to more than 100,000 stores. I believe I have a reasonable amount of experience and knowledge.
But confined to the field of AI search, my twelve years are not much of an advantage.
Because this field has no textbook. Nobody knows the answer. Nor do I. All that exists is the ability to iterate fast and check the difference. It is not the length of your experience but the number of times you have tested something that becomes the gap in capability.
For anyone early in their career, I think this is a rare set of conditions.
In most industries, whoever started earlier has the advantage; accumulated experience becomes the gap. In this field, everyone is standing on the same line. Someone who starts today can know more than anyone else six months from now. This is a place where that can genuinely happen.
There is only one thing I want to ask of you.
When a number moves, pursue why it moved.
If it went up, why did it go up? If it went down, why? Was it luck, or can it be reproduced? Whoever can keep asking that question gets strong in this field.
What I learned across two businesses comes down to one thing. Rather than relying on individual instinct or talent, build a system in which anyone can arrive at the same result. That is reproducibility, and it was the only way to scale a business.
Our name, "Itera", comes from that repetition — from "iterate".
It is patient work. It is never glamorous. But when you look back on yourself one, three or five years from now, I believe the only people who will feel genuinely changed are the ones who put in that accumulation.
You can sharpen your professional skills at any company.
But the experience of creating the standard itself does not come around many times. Making measurable what no one has measured yet. What gets decided there eventually becomes what the industry takes for granted. This is a place where you can be part of that from the very beginning.
To make measurable what no one has measured yet.
And to make a standard born in Japan the standard of the world.
Will you take on the unknown with us?
Becoming the one AI chooses.
A company that measures where you stand.
When AI such as ChatGPT or Gemini summarises and recommends information, we optimise so that your information is correctly chosen and cited. Measurement, improvement and execution are all delivered through our own products. We run two businesses — AI SaaS and digital marketing — from Shinjuku, Tokyo.
From Japan, to a global standard.
AI search has no borders to begin with. ChatGPT and Gemini answer questions from all over the world with the same model.
Which is exactly why how you measure being cited by AI cannot be a question that ends in Japanese alone.
We aim to extend the measurement standard we are building in Japan across languages and regions, and make it a standard that holds up worldwide.
Extending the observation methods we established in Japanese to other languages, so that citation patterns in AI can be compared across languages.
Taking products refined in Japan to overseas markets. LLMO is at an early stage worldwide, leaving room for a lead built from Japan.
By continuing to publish our observation data, we want it used as a shared asset for the industry. That, in turn, is what creates our position in the world.
Our overseas expansion is still ahead of us. This is the moment to be involved from the very beginning.
Itera, read through numbers
We continuously record citation patterns in AI search across industries.
We decide on data refreshed every week, not on instinct.
Our leadership has been through two exits in a predecessor business.
Founded December 2025. We have only just begun.
Measure, form a hypothesis,
execute, then verify.
Different roles, same loop.
Establish where you stand with data, explain the difference structurally, change the information architecture and the content, then measure again and go round once more. How fast and how often you can complete that loop is what matters. Because nothing depends on individual flashes of inspiration, anyone can get close to a result.
* Full details of each role are shared through the entry form. It is fine to start with nothing more than a casual conversation.
Decisions rest on data,
not on instinct.
This is an environment where arguments are settled by observation data refreshed every week, not by job title or by who speaks loudest. Everything we do at Itera rests on the five values below, and in hiring we care about whether we can share them.
Action beats a perfect plan. People and products get stronger in proportion to how many small, fast loops they have been through.
Carry the results of the business as your own numbers. Draw no lines, pick up the ball, and see it through.
Do the obvious things to a higher standard than anyone else, rather than chasing the exceptional. Think simply and stay close to what matters.
Show it in results, not in words. For customers and colleagues alike, only accumulated results become trust.
Place the customer's results and your colleagues' success ahead of your own. Every cycle begins with giving.
Before you apply
We will walk you through the details of each role and how the process works. It is fine if you only want to hear more for now.
Get in touch → COMPANYCompany profile, philosophy, leadership, history and offices, all in one place. Start here for the whole picture.
See the company profile → EXECUTIVEThe careers and messages of Takayuki Muto, Representative Director and CEO, and Koki Takenouchi, Managing Director and COO.
Meet the leadership →In a market with no textbook, we are looking for people to design how it gets measured, together with us. It is fine if you only want to hear more for now.
