Founder in practice. Researcher by discipline.

I've built companies from the inside, from Meitu Japan as founding Country Manager to BehaviorGraph and LEAD.bot as cofounder. I work across the parts most people separate: designing products, managing teams, running operations, and modeling behavioral data. My Columbia research produced the Organizational Intelligence Loop (OIL), a framework for how organizations become legible to AI. Recognized contributor to OpenClaw.

Beyond the Frontier conference, NYC Alchemist Accelerator, BRIDGE feature Meitu press event, Tokyo Panel discussion

Research

Researcher and builder in human-centered AI for organizations.

I research how AI can learn and act on the real organization, the expertise, trust, and influence that actually move work, without turning people into surveillance scores. The questions come from roughly seven years building real systems at scale, and these projects are where I answer them.

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Selected Writing
The AI Power Map — 420 people, 1,500+ relationships, one map
Book + Interactive Atlas

The AI Power Map

A 70,000-word book paired with an interactive atlas of 420 people in core AI. Maps how influence, capital, talent, and trust actually move — across labs, VCs, academia, and safety — from the founding cohorts and PayPal mafia to enterprise infrastructure, hidden ties, and the outsider playbook.

2026 · Book + Interactive
The Layer Every Enterprise AI Platform Is Missing
Enterprise AI · Market Landscape

The Layer Every Enterprise AI Platform Is Missing

How every major enterprise AI category converges on the same blind spot, and why closing that gap represents an entirely new product category.

Mar 2026 · 18 min read
Your AI Agents Route to the Wrong Person
Enterprise AI · Technical

Your AI Agents Route to the Wrong Person. Here's the Missing Layer.

Why agents fail at routing despite solid retrieval systems, and how behavioral context is the overlooked solution to organizational intelligence gaps.

Apr 2026 · 10 min read

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Public Work

Talks, press, and recognition.

A product I led ranked #26 on a16z's Top 50 Gen AI apps. Features in Nikkei, NHK, and TechCrunch Japan. Talks at Wharton, Washington University Olin, and the Beyond the Frontier summit at Microsoft NYC.

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About

I'm Yumi A.W. Kimura, a researcher and founder/operator working at the intersection of human-centered AI and organizational intelligence. I cofounded LEAD.bot and BehaviorGraph, and my Columbia research produced the Organizational Intelligence Loop (OIL), a framework for bringing organizational context into enterprise AI. I'm trilingual and based between New York and San Francisco. Most of what I publish starts as a question I can't find a good answer to.

The full story, talks, and press →

The Agentic Enterprise

Occasional essays on organizational intelligence, enterprise AI, and building things that work.