Japan is becoming a proving ground for AI coding tools as a shrinking workforce and legacy infrastructure drive demand for automation in software development. Cognition AI, the San Francisco startup behind Devin, says Japan was among its top user-engagement markets and is opening a Tokyo office, aiming to expand after launching with a Tokyo beachhead and planning additional Asia-Pacific operations. The company cites a METI-estimated software engineer shortfall of 789,000 by 2030. The report frames Devin’s adoption as a way to modernize complex legacy systems quickly—for example, Sapporo’s modernization of over one million lines of legacy code, described as cutting timelines substantially compared with manual engineering effort.