The Future of Work: Embracing a Role-Playing Approach With AI

_{Author: Takuya Yamagishi, Senior Design Researcher at Moon.} 

_{Takuya brings extensive experience in advertising strategy, brand concept development, and user research from his time at various advertising agencies. To deepen his understanding of human-centered thinking, he studied design research and service design at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Hyper Island design school. He leads projects ranging from user understanding, needs assessment to hypothesis validation, prototype development and testing.}

At Moon, we host "Future Visioning" workshops to uncover emerging trends and potential business opportunities in specific industries. Earlier this year, from January to February, the workshop series focused on "Future Work Styles and Upskilling."

With the rapid evolution of AI services, like ChatGPT, we pondered a critical question: what will be the purpose and nature of human work in the new AI-driven world? The workshop revealed a future where work styles may become more fluid with greater value placed on individual uniqueness. 

Here’s a closer look at some of the ideas and predictions that emerged from our sessions.

Table of Contents

• The Dragon Quest-Style Work Style Brought by the Spread of AI
• Featured News and Related Startups

The Dragon Quest-Style Work Style Brought by the Surge of AI

Are you familiar with Dragon Quest? It's a role-playing game (RPG) series where players take on the roles of heroes and adventurers, collaborating with companions to face powerful enemies like demon kings and explore vast worlds.

Our workshop suggested that as AI becomes more integrated into work, Dragon Quest-style work styles may become more prevalent. So, what is a "Dragon Quest-Style Work Style"? Based on the workshop results, we've identified five key elements.

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Characteristics of the Dragon Quest-Style Work Style

1. Mission-Driven

In many RPGs, including Dragon Quest, the story starts with a clear "mission"—whether it is defeating a demon king or pacifying a war-torn world. This mission serves as the driving force that motivates players to spend countless hours on the game.

Our workshop suggested that as AI reshapes the workplace, people will become more "vision-driven" and will be motivated by a sense of "purpose." Freed from mundane and repetitive tasks being handled by AI, people will place increased value on the "why" behind their work. 

This shift will increase the desire to work for companies whose missions, visions, and values resonate with them. It will also lead to the growth of mission-driven communities, connecting individuals, businesses, and even local governments around shared goals and values.

2. Project-Based Teams With Necessary Members

In Dragon Quest, there’s a "party" system that allows players to form teams with specialized characters like wizards and warriors, selected based on the type of challenge or enemy. 

Similarly, with increased AI integration, work will be more "project-based" and "team-oriented." It will be structured around project units with the necessary skills, personnel, and budgets set for attaining the specified goals. Teams will be assembled from both internal and external talent, combining the right expertise to meet project demands. After project completion, teams will dissolve and reorganize for new projects. 

This fluidity will create opportunities for knowledge-sharing and unexpected collaborations—key ingredients for successful innovation and new project successes.

Professional history will also adapt to this new model. Resumes will shift from listing job titles to highlighting project-based achievements, detailing the projects you contributed to, the team members you worked with, and the outcomes you helped deliver. This evolution will reflect a more dynamic and skills-focused career narrative.

3. Visible Skills and Level-Ups Through Work

In many games, character skills like strength, agility, and intelligence are scored and displayed to players. Experience points earned through battles with monsters allow characters to increase their abilities.

Similarly, we can envision a future where individual skills are tracked and visualized in real-time, with personalized training programs tailored to each person’s strengths and development areas. 

In the U.S., "Skills Tech," a technology area focused on managing and improving employee skills, has been gaining traction. Instead of traditional classroom learning, "simulated practical styles," where skills are learned naturally through simulated work, will become more common.

This applies not only to technical skills but also to soft skills such as communication, leadership, and emotional intelligence. Our workshop emphasized the importance of these human-centric skills, which are essential for successful teamwork and relationship-building. Visualizing a range of skills will simplify team formation and make training more effective, creating more agile and capable teams.

4. Freedom To Change Jobs

In Dragon Quest III, the “job change” system allows characters to switch roles once they reach a certain level. For example, a wizard who transitions to a warrior becomes a warrior who can use magic—combining the strengths of both roles. 

In the real world, switching to a completely different occupation through job changes or transfers is uncommon. However, with the surge of AI and the increased access to diverse skill sets, we will move closer to a world where we can freely choose jobs and design careers based on what we want to do rather than what we have done in our past careers.

This shift will enable more flexible and creative career paths where individuals can design their professional journeys based on their interests and evolving skills. Eventually, we can expect to see the emergence of unique hybrid roles created by combining diverse skill sets—blurring the lines between traditional job categories and opening up new career possibilities.

5. AI Tools for Enhancing Abilities and Skills, and Autonomous AI Agents

In Dragon Quest, weapons and armor are used to enhance a character’s attack and defense abilities. These tools are critical for advancing in the game. Some items possess special skills, while legendary weapons offer exceptional performance. Similarly, AI will serve as a powerful tool for enhancing individual capabilities and improving work efficiency through specialized skills..

In the later Dragon Quest series, a system was introduced where players could recruit monsters to fight alongside them. These monsters can be seen as a today's AI agents. How well you command and utilize these AI agents will determine your success.

As AI becomes more widespread, mastering AI tools and strategies will become a fundamental aspect of business literacy. Furthermore, high-performance AI and agents may become premium assets—accessible only to a select few at high costs. We may even see the rise of legendary AI tools, akin to the coveted “Erdrick’s Sword,” becoming rare and highly sought-after advantages in the business world.

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We have now explored the five characteristics of the Dragon Quest-style work style. While news about AI replacing jobs can make the future of work seem uncertain, it's worth reflecting on how we felt while playing games. Weren’t we excited and fully absorbed, losing track of time? 

The Dragon Quest-style of work envisions a future where people work with that same sense of joy and purpose.

Just as using computers became second nature over the past few decades, mastering AI will become indispensable in the near future. However, there is something more important than skills: the question of "Who do I want to have adventures with, and what kind of adventures do I want to have?"

Even if your answer to that question is unclear, AI will be able to serve as a powerful tool to help support and realize your vision.

For further reading, explore startups and news related to the Dragon Quest-style work style:

Featured News and Related Startups

1. Launch of "In-House BizReach by HRMOS," a New Service to Prevent Talent Outflow Through Internal Scouting

_{Using generative AI, this service creates "internal resumes" by summarizing several years of employee achievements and experiences in minutes. This helps in building and maintaining in-house talent repositories. By inputting "in-house job postings," the system automatically verbalizes and proposes position requirements. It also helps recruiters  It also supports recruiters by enabling them to define and refine position requirements based on an employee's specific career history and skill set.}

_{Reference: https://www.bizreach.co.jp/pressroom/pressrelease/2025/0128.html}

BizReach, a Japanese company renowned for its recruitment platform that connects high-caliber professionals with businesses seeking immediate talent, has launched a new service, 'In-House BizReach by HRMOS'. While the name has drawn attention, the service's standout feature is its 'internal resume' creation capability.

Visualizing skills is a key step toward the "Dragon Quest-style work style," where skills are clearly defined and leveled up through work experience. The system will help in creating internal resumes to visualize skills and accelerate project-based team formation.

2. DeNA Tomoko Namba Talks "Company Management and Growth Strategies in the AI Era" (Full Transcription)

_{We will grow our existing business with half the personnel. And with the other half, we will work on new businesses. Not just one new business, but with the image of producing unicorns with groups of 10 people, we will attack crazily.}

_{Reference: https://fullswing.dena.com/archives/100153/}

This is an excerpt from a speech by Tomoko Namba, Founder and Chairperson of DeNA, at the opening of "DeNA × AI Day || DeNA TechCon 2025," hosted by DeNA Corporation. In the speech, Namba outlined a bold strategy: rather than relying on the full workforce to grow existing business, DeNA plans to dramatically increase productivity through AI and redirect half of the workforce towards building new businesses. The idea of "mass-producing unicorns with 10 people" reflects the current trend in the United States, where unicorns valued at 300 billion yen are being created with teams as small as just 7 people.

This strategy perfectly embodies the "Dragon Quest-style work style" of forming small, focused teams to achieve ambitious goals, with AI serving as a powerful tool. Namba’s phrase “attack aggressively” hints at a future where forming lean, highly skilled teams to drive innovation with AI will become the norm.

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3. Adventure Your Career with Data, Chart a Map to the Future | Carrium Inc.

Carrium Inc.'s "Career Force" service (https://www.carrium.co.jp/) visualizes career paths and explores future possibilities based on real career data from approximately 1 million people. You can quantitatively learn about the career paths of people who have had similar careers to yours in the past.

This service reveals a broader range of career options than you might have imagined. Knowing your career possibilities and expanding your options connects to the "Dragon Quest-style work style" world, where you can freely change jobs and roles based on your evolving skills and interests.

In the future, the company plans to offer services that propose personalized career paths based on work histories, shaping a new era of career design.

4. Audio Education Media for Sharpening Thinking Skills | VOOX

VOOX (https://www.voox.me/) is an audiobook service where authors deliver knowledge from their books in their voices, with content distributed through apps like "Amazon Audible" and "VOOX."

Their newly launched "Future Lab" service offers workshops aimed at enhancing the human ability to "conceptualize and understand the essence" of complex ideas, drawing from liberal arts. The workshop focuses on "themes that create the future," "interdisciplinary discussions," and "social implementation of intelligence."

As mentioned, In the Dragon Quest-style work style, missions play a central role. To create compelling missions, it is essential to deeply understand the essence of the business and identify key elements. By enhancing conceptualization abilities, companies can craft meaningful ‘missions’ that resonate with employees, attract top talent, and drive higher engagement.

Would You Like to Think About the Future of Work with Moon?

At Moon, we would like to explore new possibilities through discussions and workshops on future work styles and upskilling/​reskilling with HR personnel and companies/​startups engaged in this field. If you are interested, please contact takuya@mooncreativelab.com.

Author: Takuya Yamagishi, Senior Design Researcher at Moon. 

_{All Illustration by Freepik Storyset (https://storyset.com/)}