25 Years No One Could Solve. AI Solved It in Just a Few Hours.

Let’s start with the facts.

In 2025, Google’s AI “AlphaProof” proved a mathematical conjecture (the generalization of the hat puzzle in combinatorial theory) that had remained unsolved for 25 years. A problem that mathematicians around the world struggled with for a quarter of a century was resolved by AI.

It would be a waste to end this news with a simple, “What amazing technology!”

The essence is this: “We have entered an era where AI can produce intellectual achievements that experts could not achieve in years, in an instant.” This is not just a story about the world of mathematics. It fundamentally disrupts the costs associated with “outsourcing fees,” “consulting fees,” and “fees for expert services”—in other words, the hourly rates of experts.

Is this a threat or an opportunity for small and medium enterprises in rural areas?

To conclude, structurally, this represents one of the greatest opportunities for small and medium enterprises. However, if you remain passive, you will gain nothing. In fact, you may be left behind.

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What Does It Mean for ‘Expert Hourly Rates’ to Collapse?

If you are a small or medium enterprise owner, you may have experienced the following:

• When you asked a consultant for market research for a new business, you received a quote of 1.5 to 3 million yen.
• When you requested a legal check on a contract from a lawyer, it cost 50,000 to 100,000 yen per case.
• When you outsourced copywriting for a recruitment page, it cost 300,000 to 500,000 yen.
• When you asked a contractor to organize internal manuals, it exceeded 1 million yen.

What are the true costs behind these expenses? “Expert knowledge × Time spent”. Lawyers charge between 30,000 to 50,000 yen per hour, while strategic consultants charge between 50,000 to 100,000 yen. You were paying for knowledge and experience.

However, AI has begun to offer this “knowledge” at nearly zero cost.

I want you to see the actual numbers reflecting what is happening.

These are not theoretical values. They reflect actual numbers from our clients.

3 million yen becomes 50,000 yen. Costs are reduced to 1/60th. This is the essence of the “collapse of expert hourly rates.”

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What Changes for Small and Medium Enterprises—Three Structural Changes

1. The Barrier of “Not Being Able to Afford Experts” Disappears

The biggest reason small and medium enterprises have struggled to compete with large corporations until now has been the disparity in intellectual resources. Large corporations have legal departments, marketing departments, and corporate planning departments. Small and medium enterprises often have only the president who wears all those hats.

AI flattens this disparity. With AI tools costing just a few tens of thousands of yen per month, you can conduct initial legal assessments, marketing research, and business planning discussions. We have entered an era where small and medium enterprises can produce the “intellectual output” that large corporations’ specialized teams used to provide.

This is a reversal of structure. Large corporations, with their existing specialized departments, will be slower to transition to AI. Their decision-making processes are slower. Small and medium enterprises, being more agile, can start using AI from tomorrow.

2. “Personalization” Becomes the Greatest Risk

“Only our veteran Tanaka can do this job”—this is a common scenario in small and medium enterprises.

If Tanaka leaves, it’s over. If Tanaka takes a break, everything stops. But there’s no time to document Tanaka’s knowledge.

AI can be a weapon to dismantle this personalization. You can feed Tanaka’s work procedures into AI to create manuals. You can train AI on Tanaka’s decision-making criteria so that anyone can make the same judgments. In fact, in one of our supported clients, we managed to document a veteran employee’s tacit knowledge using AI in just two weeks for under 100,000 yen.

Previously, this would have cost 2 million yen and taken six months with a business consultant.

3. The Criteria for Deciding What to Outsource and What to In-House Changes

The previous common understanding: Highly specialized tasks are outsourced. Simple tasks are done in-house.

The new common understanding: Intellectual tasks that can be done by AI are done in-house. Focus on “judgment” and “relationship building” that only humans can do.

AI will draft contracts. But the final judgment of “Is this condition really acceptable?” will be made by a human. AI will handle data collection and analysis for market research. But deciding “Given this data, how should we act?” is the responsibility of the business owner.

AI reduces the “cost of acquiring knowledge,” while the “value of judgment” actually increases. If you misunderstand this, you will end up being tossed around by AI.

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In an Era Where AI Wins Literary Awards, What Is “Human Work”?

In 2025, a novel involving AI in its creation made it to the final selection for a literary award. The presence of AI is increasing even in the creative domain.

Whether you interpret this as “AI taking away jobs” or “AI reducing the cost of creativity” will completely change your approach.

In the context of small and medium enterprises, it looks like this:

• If you ask a designer to produce 10 design proposals for a flyer, it costs 200,000 yen and takes two weeks. With AI, it takes 30 minutes and is almost free.
• A staff member was spending an hour every day brainstorming ideas for social media posts. With AI, it can generate 10 ideas in 5 minutes.
• Outsourcing the script for a recruitment video costs 500,000 yen. If you create a draft with AI, the outsourcing cost drops to just 100,000 yen for the final touches.

The cost of “creation” approaches nearly zero. What happens then?

The ability to decide “what to create” and “who to deliver it to” becomes the source of competitive advantage.

This is where the strength of small and medium enterprises lies. They know their local customers. They have a feel for the ground. They understand what “that customer in our town” is looking for, something that consultants from Tokyo will never grasp.

AI is a tool. When the cost of tools decreases, the value of the human “sense of the field” and “judgment” increases relatively. This is the reversal of structure for small and medium enterprises.

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So, What Should We Do?

“I understand that AI is important. So, what should I do starting tomorrow?”

This is the most crucial question. Here are three things to consider.

① First, Try Using AI for One Task You Were Outsourcing

You don’t have to do everything at once. Choose one task you were planning to outsource next and try doing it with AI. It could be market research, writing, or creating manuals.

ChatGPT (3,000 yen per month) or Claude (about 3,000 yen per month) is sufficient. Just trying it once and experiencing, “Oh, I didn’t need to outsource this,” will change your perspective on the world.

② Transfer the “Knowledge in the Veteran’s Head” to AI

Choose one task that has become personalized. Interview that veteran for an hour, record it, transcribe it with AI, and create a manual. Just doing this will create a system that can operate without Tanaka.

The initial cost is almost zero. All that’s needed is the decision to “do it.”

③ Separate What AI Can Do from What Humans Should Do

Create a list of all tasks and evaluate each one to see if it can be delegated to AI. You will likely realize that 30 to 40% of your current tasks can be handled by AI.

What will you do with the time saved? That is the job of the business owner.

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The Collapse of Expert Hourly Rates Is a Blessing for Small and Medium Enterprises

AI has solved a mathematical problem that remained unsolved for 25 years. The essence of this news is that “the scarcity of knowledge has disappeared.”

In an era when knowledge was scarce, small and medium enterprises were at a disadvantage. They couldn’t afford to hire experts. They didn’t have the money to consult. The intellectual gap with large corporations only widened.

That structure is now on the verge of being overturned.

In a world where the cost of acquiring knowledge approaches zero, what will determine success is not whether you have knowledge, but “how you use that knowledge to deliver value to your customers.”

This is something small and medium enterprises should excel at compared to large corporations.

They know the field. They can see the faces of their customers. They make decisions quickly. They can change starting tomorrow.

Now that the cost of the tool called AI has dramatically decreased, the conditions for small and medium enterprises to compete with large corporations are beginning to align.

There is only one question left: Will you act, or will you not?

AI has solved a problem that remained unsolved for 25 years. Changing your company’s “operations that have remained unchanged for 25 years” is not that difficult.