NTT DATA Group Cuts Incident Analysis Time with Codex AI Tool

Japanese IT services company NTT DATA Group has successfully reduced the time it takes to analyze complex incidents from three days to just 30 minutes using its Codex AI tool. This achievement is a significant milestone in the company’s efforts to automate tasks and streamline work processes, marking a major shift towards creating greater value through artificial intelligence (AI).

Building on the widespread adoption of ChatGPT Enterprise across the organization, NTT DATA Group expanded Codex to approximately 9,000 employees, including both technical and non-technical roles. This move reflects the company’s evolving growth model from expanding revenue by adding headcount to creating greater value through AI.

As a global IT services company spanning consulting, systems development, and operations, NTT DATA Group is at the forefront of leveraging AI in its business environment. The company has been actively promoting the use of AI within its own organization as part of its ‘Client Zero’ approach, treating itself as the first customer to test AI solutions.

The success with Codex was preceded by the deployment of ChatGPT Enterprise across NTT DATA Group’s global operations following a strategic partnership with OpenAI in May 2025. This move enabled employees to build experience working with AI for research, writing, and content creation, laying the groundwork for delegating clearly defined tasks to Codex.

One notable example of Codex’s capabilities is its automation of complex incident analysis for critical systems. Previously requiring five experienced engineers and taking three days to complete, this task was completed in just 30 minutes using Codex. This achievement quickly gained attention from senior leaders and became an early proof point for what Codex could make possible.

Codex has demonstrated the potential to go beyond being a coding assistant by independently investigating, executing, testing, and revising based on instructions. Hiroaki Sato of NTT DATA Group’s AI Technology Department notes that ‘Codex has changed how people across the company think about AI.’ The idea that AI can take the lead in carrying out work has had an impact similar to the arrival of ChatGPT.

Sato emphasizes, ‘Codex is about more than helping developers write code faster. As ChatGPT Enterprise has become part of how our employees think, explore ideas, and solve problems, Codex opens the door to a new way of working.’ By enabling AI to research, organize, execute, and validate work, it empowers every employee to transform their role.

The potential demonstrated in incident analysis extends beyond software development. NTT DATA Group’s ‘Client Zero’ approach encourages employees across various departments to test AI solutions within their daily work. As a result, Codex adoption is expanding from engineers to nontechnical employees across different functions.

Nontechnical employees are already using Codex for tasks such as building lightweight tools, organizing large volumes of files, analyzing data in Excel, summarizing documents, and scripting repetitive processes. These tasks often require automation but would be too time-consuming to handle manually.

For example, employees use Codex to extract transportation expenses from credit card statements and transfer them into travel expense forms. This process involves working across multiple files, understanding the structure and entry rules of each sheet, and verifying the completed transfer, streamlining work that was previously manual and cumbersome.

Another significant shift is that nontechnical employees can now complete tasks that once required support from engineers. Creating an analytical report, for instance, previously required preparing data in a business intelligence tool and building a dashboard. With Codex, employees can analyze raw data directly and create the reports they need, improving efficiency while reducing dependence on specialized tools and skills.

In this way, Codex is doing more than supporting software development; it’s lowering the barrier to work that once required specialized expertise and enabling employees without development experience to create practical outputs for their roles.

To expand the use of Codex across the organization, NTT DATA Group recognized the need for an environment where everyone can use it safely and with confidence. This foundation is crucial not only for its own employees but also for customers across various industries supported by the company.

The OpenAI Center of Excellence has developed and rolled out security guidelines alongside practical guidance for adoption. These guidelines clarify what data can be used, which systems Codex can connect to, how network traffic is managed, which sandbox mode to apply, what level of automation is appropriate, and where human review is required.

This environment enables employees across technical and nontechnical roles to confidently explore new ways to use Codex. With this foundation in place, Codex adoption is moving beyond a small number of advanced use cases and steadily becoming part of the daily work for approximately 9,000 employees.

NTT DATA Group’s experience with Codex has delivered tangible results across the organization, including completing complex incident analysis in just 30 minutes, increasing weekly active Codex users by 1.4 times after publishing a usage guide and conducting hands-on training, and automating internal system operations using Playwright to reduce time spent on routine daily tasks.

The company’s journey with Codex highlights five key lessons for embedding AI tools across an organization: making ChatGPT Enterprise part of daily work, deploying it broadly to create network effects through peer learning and word of mouth, creating a secure environment where employees can use AI safely, continuously improving adoption programs using usage data, surveys, and employee interviews, and having the CoE identify and generalize high-impact use cases.

NTT DATA Group’s ambition goes beyond making individual tasks more efficient. By embedding AI into everyday work, the company is creating an environment where people and AI can each contribute their strengths and generate greater value faster.