The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education fully launched “Toritsu-AI,” a dedicated generative AI platform, in May 2025, making it available to all 256 metropolitan schools and approximately 140,000 students and staff. The platform was developed in collaboration with Konica Minolta Japan, built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI (GPT-4o-mini and above), and designed with safety filtering and tenant separation to ensure student inputs are not used for AI training. Inappropriate interactions are filtered automatically.
The platform supports individualized learning, exploratory and supplementary lessons, and teacher workload reduction through automated document drafting and test question creation. The Board of Education has established an explicit policy on AI hallucinations, requiring students to be taught that AI responses may be inaccurate and that fact-checking is essential. In July 2025, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government formulated its broader Tokyo AI Strategy to address administrative challenges and labour shortages.
Who it affects: Approximately 140,000 students and 20,000 staff across all 256 Tokyo metropolitan public schools. The platform is operational and deployed, not a pilot or proposal.
What is notably missing: The initiative provides AI access and practical experience but does not constitute a compulsory AI curriculum with mandated class hours or formal assessment. Teacher training requirements for using the platform are not detailed. The strategy focuses on metropolitan (prefectural) schools and does not extend to municipal schools operated by Tokyo’s 23 special wards and other municipalities.