In just 10 days, the future of print moved—fast

About 10 days have passed since the last update.

I’m finally back to the point where I can write. So this is a supersized, extra-large issue—a catch-up on everything that changed while I was out.

Honestly, these were the kinds of stories I wanted to follow one by one, daily. But reviewing them all at once made something clearer: a single, big current is running through all of it.

AI is no longer just a tool for making images and text.

It has started working inside companies.

It is starting to search for products, compare them, and try to buy.

At the same time, paper and printed matter are shifting—from “a medium that carries information” to products, experiences, proof, and doorways into digital.

These are not separate stories.

Somewhere in that overlap is new work for printing companies.

This time, we’ll look back at the news from these ~10 days in one sweep—and use it to think about the printing industry’s next route.

What you should know first, today

On August 3, Japan’s manufacturing sector posted a pretty bright number.

Japan’s Manufacturing PMI for July was 54.5.

Above 50 indicates business activity expanded compared with the previous month.

Output growth was the strongest since February 2014.

New orders were the strongest since January 2022.

Overseas orders saw the strongest growth in more than five years.

Behind it is demand for semiconductors and AI-related products.

AI is not a screen-only boom.

It makes semiconductors.

It runs equipment.

It moves materials.

It expands factories.

It hires engineers.

It explains new technology to customers.

It is starting to move real-world manufacturing—physically.

This wave is not irrelevant to printing companies.

When manufacturing moves, work appears across hiring materials, training, safety signage, technical brochures, trade shows, factory tours, packaging, labels, forms, and logistics.

The conclusion that emerged in these 10 days

Over this period, AI started to take on three roles.

AI creates

Lotte started a service on July 29 that generates a character in the Bikkuriman world from your own face photo—and turns it into physical items like business cards, T-shirts, and acrylic goods.

It doesn’t end with AI generating an image.

The official IP’s worldbuilding.

The fun of not knowing what you’ll receive.

The chance that a special hologram edition might arrive.

Printing, finishing, inspection, and individual shipping.

All of it is packaged into a single product.

AI works

OpenAI announced an AI agent called “Presence” that works in live, production business operations.

It doesn’t just answer questions.

It uses enterprise systems, executes permitted actions, and hands off to a human when judgement is difficult.

In OpenAI’s English-language phone support, it is said that 75% of inquiries were resolved without human intervention.

AI buys

In the global printing industry, work is underway to add print-specific specifications to a purchasing common standard called “UCP,” promoted by Google and Shopify.

In the future, a customer’s AI might say:

“500 copies of invitations on FSC-certified paper”

“Spot varnish on one section”

“Deliver to Tokyo by next Friday”

…and then search for printing companies that can comply, compare specs and prices, and place the order.

AI becomes a printing company’s customer.

It may still sound like the near future. But international printing industry bodies have already started building that shared language.

NEWS FRONT | 10 moves that happened while I was away

1 | Japan’s factories started moving on AI demand

On August 3, strong growth was confirmed in Japan’s manufacturing output, new orders, and overseas orders.

AI investment is not a software-only market.

It is an industrial wave that includes factories, semiconductors, materials, logistics, packaging, and technical communications.

2 | Hiring weakens, while demand for AI skills hits a record high

In the UK, overall job postings and early-career postings are declining, while AI-related skills are appearing in job ads at the highest frequency on record.

It’s less “AI makes people unnecessary,” and more “the roles people are needed for are changing.”

The value of people who can connect AI with the shop floor, customers, and products is rising.

3 | AI investment lifted South Korea’s exports

South Korea’s July exports rose 62.8% year on year.

Semiconductors increased 179%, and computers increased 404%.

Global money is flowing not only into AI models, but into the chips, factories, logistics, and electricity behind them.

4 | The cost of using AI continuously dropped again

OpenAI updated the price-performance of GPT-5.6.

It’s becoming easier to deploy AI into high-frequency classification, spec extraction, document checks, and first-line inquiry handling.

The environment is taking shape to use AI not as someone you consult occasionally, but as a daily member of operations.

5 | Even AI employees need roles—and a boss

What Presence suggests is not a future where you assign everything to a single AI.

Inquiry handling.

Internal IT.

Billing processing.

Define one job and give only the information and permissions it needs.

Define the conditions under which it hands off to a human.

Even AI employees will need job descriptions and managers.

6 | Identity verification enters proxy purchasing by AI

DNP expanded a mechanism that verifies on whose behalf an AI agent is purchasing, and what permissions it holds.

The more AI performs purchasing and ordering, the more not only convenience but also approval, responsibility, and audit logs become products.

7 | You become an official Bikkuriman character

From a single face photo, your own official character is created and delivered as physical business cards and goods.

What’s being sold here is not printed area.

Officialness.

Personalness.

Limited-ness.

Anticipation until it arrives.

A story you want to show someone.

8 | DTP shifts from “operating” to “designing the system”

JAGAT announced a hands-on course that combines InDesign and Codex to build scripts through dialogue with AI.

It covers automating Excel imports, image placement, PDF output, and more.

DTP staff will shift from people who can operate InDesign quickly to people who design templates, data, quality, and exception handling.

9 | QR codes become product certificates

In the EU, the registration infrastructure for the Digital Product Passport has started.

Product origin.

How to use it.

Reuse.

Regulatory compliance.

Information like this will be accessed via QR and similar codes.

A printing company’s work doesn’t end at printing the QR.

It expands into preparing the product information behind it—and keeping it updated.

10 | Paper prices moved by 15% or more

Nippon Paper implemented a price revision of 15% or more for items including white paperboard, cup base paper, processed base paper, and packaging paper, for shipments from July 21.

Price revision effective date.

Quote validity period.

Substitute papers.

Material cost ratios by product.

If you don’t manage this as a system rather than relying on sales reps’ memory, you can lose profit even when orders increase.

A rough view of this week’s printing industry

The printing industry is not all bad—and not all good.

Markets that distribute the same information at scale are weak.

On the other hand, there is new work in:

• packaging
• cards
• IP goods
• events
• personalization
• manufacturing-sector technical communications
• factory tours
• product information operations

Even in JAGAT’s management capability survey, respondent companies’ sales have increased for two consecutive years.

But profits are thin.

So the management theme isn’t simply “more orders,” but demand creation and pricing power.

Material costs and labor costs rise.

Customers are strict on price.

Young talent is scarce.

Investment in AI and automation is also required.

Two engines matter here.

Engine #1 | Become a company AI can handle

Push standard work through as fast, accurately, and with as little effort as possible.

For that, simply subscribing to AI tools is not enough.

Product name.

Paper stock.

Finishing.

Price.

Cost.

Equipment capacity.

Standard lead times.

Conditions you cannot support.

If those aren’t organized, AI can’t estimate correctly.

At Bunseikaku, that means making B-DOCK the foundation for accurate product, price, and process information.

Make Purinavi (our ordering portal) the front door for orders.

Have Print Navigator identify missing specifications from a customer’s vague inquiry.

Have AI employees handle organizing quote requests and answering progress questions.

We need a state where information entered once flows through estimation, order acceptance, production, delivery, and reorders.

Engine #2 | Make physical products and experiences people want

The more AI can generate images at scale, the less rare the image itself becomes.

At the same time, value may rise in things that are:

• official
• made just for you
• finished with special processes
• limited in quantity
• kept in your hands
• tradable with others

What makes the Bikkuriman AI Goods Maker interesting is that it isn’t an AI image-generation service.

The IP’s world.

Randomness.

Limited editions.

Hologram finishing.

The time spent waiting for delivery.

The experience of showing someone.

It bundles all of that into one product.

Printing companies are good at exactly that last mile.

Receive data.

Lock specs.

Mass-produce.

Finish.

Inspect.

Ship individually without mistakes.

Connect the post-delivery experience via QR or web.

The cheaper AI gets, the more print quality matters

Making designs with AI will get easier and easier.

But to sell them as products, hard work still remains.

Receive face photos safely.

Confirm the person’s consent.

Don’t break the IP’s world.

Stop inappropriate outputs.

Adapt to each product’s size.

Match color.

Don’t make mistakes in variable data.

Apply special finishes.

Deliver to different addresses, one by one.

Handle returns and remakes.

“Can generate” and “can deliver safely as a business” are different.

This is where a printing company’s quality control and shop-floor strength matter.

Paper shifts to product, experience, and proof

Until now, paper’s value was “it can carry information.”

Of course, that role remains.

But for information alone, screens are faster.

Where paper will become stronger is in moments like:

• owning
• gifting
• unboxing
• collecting
• trading
• participating
• proving something is authentic
• starting a digital experience

The Digital Product Passport is one example of this current.

A QR printed on packaging or a label connects to origin, materials, repair, recycling, and regulatory information.

Paper becomes not the endpoint of information, but an entry point connecting physical goods and data.

Printing companies’ work will change too

In this kind of management, the roles of workers change as well.

Technical roles

Not people who simply run machines, but people who design quality, finishing, variable data, and manufacturability at scale.

Sales roles

Not people who answer price and lead time, but people who translate customer problems into paper, experience, and online.

IT roles

Not internal help desks, but people who understand the shop floor and grow B-DOCK, Purinavi, and AI employees as business products.

AI won’t make printing work boring.

It can turn it into something quite interesting: building physical and digital together.

Connect print, experience, and online into one

Say a brand launches a new limited product.

Print

Make packaging, cards, booklets, POP (point-of-purchase displays), and serial printing.

Experience

Design unboxing, trading, events, pop-ups, and fan-to-fan interaction.

Online

Connect to photo registration, product ordering, membership signup, CRM, repurchase, and limited content.

When these three become one, printed matter stops being a deliverable—and becomes a mechanism for building customer relationships.

The PEO Bunseikaku envisions is exactly this connection.

Not just selling printed matter, but co-designing the customer’s business outcomes.

If you want to test small, first

Pick just one standard thick-paper card product.

1. Organize product information

Register size, paper, finishing, quantity, price, cost, equipment, lead time, and unsupported conditions in B-DOCK.

2. Let AI handle consultations

Enter 20 types of order text into Print Navigator.

Can it ask questions to fill missing specifications?

Can it propose the right product?

Does it avoid mistakes on price and lead time?

Can it hand off special cases to a human?

3. Make the physical product

Create individualized designs with AI, print variable data, and apply special finishing.

4. Connect to an experience

Add a QR to the card and connect it to product explanations, staff introductions, factory tours, and reorders.

With this single experiment, you can complete a full loop:

• AI creates
• AI works
• AI supports ordering
• the factory turns it physical
• QR builds the next relationship

In the AI era, what does a printing company become?

AI will get even cheaper, faster, and smarter.

So it will be hard for printing companies to differentiate on AI performance alone.

The differentiator is your own knowledge.

Your equipment’s quirks.

Color judgement.

Finishing limits.

The conditions under which you can profit.

The experiences customers genuinely enjoy.

Hold those as data—and let AI use them.

At the same time, humans build the things AI can’t fully decide: worldbuilding, feel, surprise, and relationships.

A company that advances both at once will be the next kind of printing company.

About 10 days of being stopped by poor health.

The world moved more than I expected.

But printing companies aren’t outside the future.

Turn what AI creates into something you can touch.

Organize products and work so AI can order.

Connect paper to experience and data.

And protect trust through shop-floor quality.

An era where AI creates, works, and buys.

A printing company can become the company that completes the real world.

It looks like this voyage will stay interesting for a long time.

#BeyondPrinting #BeyondPrintingJournal #BPJ #printing #printingcompany #printDX #generativeAI #AIagents #AgenticPrint #personalization #IP #DPP #B_DOCK #Purinavi #Bunseikaku