NTT East charges SMBs JPY2,750 a month for AI search visibility

NTT East launched a managed AI marketing service for small- and medium-sized enterprises on 2 November, priced at JPY2,750 ($17.42) per business per month. The service, Omakase Net Marketing Support, is designed to keep SMBs discoverable as AI systems increasingly shape online search results.

The move targets a problem that has crept up on smaller businesses. AI-driven search and answer engines now mediate how consumers find local companies, and inconsistent or outdated business information across websites and social platforms reduces the chance an SMB appears in AI-generated results.

What does the service actually do?

Omakase Net Marketing Support centralises the management and distribution of business information. An SMB can use the platform to control its visibility across the web and social media sites from one place, rather than updating listings site by site.

NTT East has built AI into the platform itself. The system scours online information for inaccuracies in how a business is represented, and collates reviews and ratings from across the internet into a single view.

The platform also addresses a subtler problem: perception. NTT East warned that dispersed information makes it difficult for companies to judge how they are "perceived and evaluated", which can hinder attempts to improve online discovery.

What can subscribers see?

Subscribers get two analytical capabilities that go beyond basic listing management:

• A view of how their company is presented by consumer AI systems — effectively a window into what an AI assistant or AI search engine says about the business when a customer asks
• Competitor comparison, allowing an SMB to benchmark its AI-generated presentation against rivals in the same market

For practitioners, the first capability is the notable one. As consumer AI systems increasingly answer questions such as "find me a plumber nearby", businesses have had almost no tooling to audit what those systems say about them. NTT East is packaging that audit as a subscription line item.

How much does it cost?

The price is JPY2,750 ($17.42) per business per month. Contracts are restricted to one per address listed, meaning a company operating multiple locations would need separate contracts for each address it wants covered.

At roughly $209 per year, the service sits at the low end of managed marketing tooling, a price point calibrated for the smallest businesses rather than agencies or mid-market firms.

Why is a fixed-line operator selling this?

NTT East's core business is fixed telecommunications in eastern Japan, but the operator has a long-standing commercial relationship with the SMB segment through its broadband and telephony base. A visibility service priced under $20 per month is a natural adjacency: it monetises the operator's existing billing relationship with small businesses that lack in-house marketing staff.

The service also reflects a market shift. NTT East noted AI is increasingly influential in online search results, meaning smaller companies may struggle to remain visible without help keeping their information up-to-date and consistent. That is a demand signal, not vendor optimism — the operator is responding to a change in how discovery itself works.

What changes for SMB practitioners?

The launch acknowledges a gap between enterprise and small business in AI-era marketing. Large brands already invest in data consistency and reputation management. Small businesses typically do not, and the arrival of AI-mediated search raises the cost of that neglect.

NTT East has effectively productised the fix: one contract, one monthly fee, one platform for listings, review aggregation and AI-presentation monitoring. The per-address restriction is the main scaling constraint for multi-site operators.

The service went live on 2 November, and its trajectory will show whether AI visibility becomes a standard utility for Japanese SMBs or remains a niche add-on.