Airi Matsui was born on December 26, 1996, in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. Her professional career began in 2009 when she won the Grand Prix at the 13th Nicola Model Audition. She subsequently began appearing as a model for the teenage fashion magazine nicola, with contemporary profiles recording her first appearance from the magazine's October 2009 issue. Modeling became the foundation of a career that would later expand into idol performance, television, film, advertising and fashion.
By 2010, Airi had become one of the original eight members of Sakura Gakuin, Amuse's school-themed "limited to the growing period" group. Sakura Gakuin was designed around the idea that members would participate only while they were of compulsory school age, eventually graduating as they completed junior high school. Airi therefore entered the project knowing that her time in the group would be limited, even as Sakura Gakuin was establishing its identity through music, live performances and a system of smaller extracurricular club units.
Within Sakura Gakuin, Airi formed the Newspaper Club unit SCOOPERS with fellow founding member Ayaka Miyoshi. The duo performed "Brand New Day," one of Sakura Gakuin's early subunit songs. The Newspaper Club concept played on the pair acting as reporters while allowing Airi to develop performance experience outside the main group. Her years in Sakura Gakuin overlapped with her continuing work as a fashion model, making her one of the group's earliest members to maintain a substantial parallel career outside the idol project.
Sakura Gakuin's first years included appearances at TOKYO IDOL FESTIVAL, releases such as the group's first album Sakura Gakuin 2010 Nendo ~message~, and the development of the club-unit system that later became one of the group's defining characteristics. Airi continued with the group through the 2011 school year and appeared on Sakura Gakuin 2011 Nendo ~FRIENDS~.
On March 25, 2012, Airi graduated from Sakura Gakuin together with Ayami Muto and Ayaka Miyoshi at Sakura Gakuin 2011 Nendo ~Graduation~ at Nihonbashi Mitsui Hall. They became Sakura Gakuin's first graduating class. Unlike later graduates who had entered after the group's concept was already established, Airi had helped build Sakura Gakuin from its first public era and left just as the project was beginning to develop its long-term annual graduation structure.
Following Sakura Gakuin, Airi increasingly concentrated on fashion modeling and acting. She continued as a nicola model into 2013, appearing on the magazine's March 2013 cover and participating in the graduation issue period that concluded her years with the magazine. By this stage she was moving from the junior-fashion world toward broader mainstream modeling and entertainment work.
A major breakthrough arrived in 2013 when Airi was selected as the sixth commercial girl for the Japanese wedding-information magazine Zexy. Recruit selected her through the brand's CM Girl audition, and the resulting "If you get proposed to, Zexy" campaign became one of her most visible early advertising jobs. The campaign placed the 16-year-old Airi in a nationwide commercial series and significantly increased her public recognition outside the Sakura Gakuin and fashion-model audiences.
The same year marked the beginning of her more substantial acting career. Airi appeared as Noa Takigawa in Fuji TV's live-action drama Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, establishing one of her first regular television drama roles. Her combination of modeling and acting quickly became the direction of her post-Sakura career.
Airi first appeared in Ray in 2013 and became an exclusive model for the magazine from the October 2014 issue. Ray became the central publication of her adult modeling career. She remained an exclusive model for approximately seven years, progressing from one of the magazine's youngest faces to one of its recognizable regular models and cover personalities.
Her acting workload expanded significantly in 2014. She joined the ensemble cast of the Fuji TV/Kansai TV drama GTO and also appeared in Nippon TV's live-action adaptation of Hell Teacher Nube. That November, she appeared in the film Omoinokoshi, one of the projects that helped establish her transition from television and fashion work into feature films.
In 2015, Airi appeared in the successful film Flying Colors (Birigal) and continued to expand her commercial and television profile. On March 27 she released her first photobook, Airy, photographed in Guam and her home prefecture of Fukushima. The photobook was positioned as a commemoration of her high-school graduation and represented an important milestone in her modeling career. During this period she also worked as a weather presenter on Nippon TV's Going! Sports & News, further broadening her television experience beyond scripted acting.
Airi continued appearing in major commercial films, including Aozora Yell in 2016. During the second half of the 2010s she steadily accumulated television roles rather than relying on a single breakout production. Her credits included Love Hotel's Mr. Ueno in 2017, Adult High School in 2017 and Konnatokoro ni Unmei no Hito in 2018. This period established her as a familiar supporting and recurring actress across Japanese commercial television while she remained active as a fashion model.
In 2019, Airi appeared in the film Fortuna's Eye as Mariko Uematsu and in the NHK drama Kore wa Keihi de Ochimasen!. By then, a decade had passed since the Nicola audition that began her career, and she had successfully transitioned from teenage modeling and idol activities into adult acting without leaving Amuse.
The year 2020 became another important turning point. Airi starred as Rina Ichinose in Iyashi no Kokoromi ~Jibun wo Suki ni Naru Houhou~, her first leading role in a feature film. The story centered on a woman rebuilding her life through work as a therapist, giving Airi the opportunity to carry a film as its principal character.
Later that year, she co-starred with Mizuki Itagaki in MBS's workplace-romance drama Shachiku Marriage Honey, playing Ami Haruta. The series was based on Emi Fujiwara's manga and used an unusual premise in which two people marry immediately after meeting through a matchmaking app, only to discover that they work for the same company. The role became one of Airi's better-known romantic-drama performances of the period.
2020 also marked the end of her long association with Ray. Airi graduated as an exclusive model with the magazine's October 2020 issue after approximately seven years. In retrospective interviews, Ray described her development from the publication's youngest, "little sister" type of model into one of its leading faces. Leaving the magazine did not mean leaving modeling; rather, it marked the end of a specific long-term fashion chapter while her acting career was becoming increasingly central.
Airi continued working extensively during the early 2020s. Her television credits included Receptionist Joe in 2022, while her career began moving more frequently toward lead and co-lead roles. She also maintained a presence in fashion, advertising and magazine work even after completing her exclusive Ray contract.
In 2023, Airi starred opposite JO1's Shion Tsurubo in the Japanese remake of Blue Birthday, playing Karin Ozaki. The drama combined romance, mystery and time travel and became one of the clearest examples of Airi's transition into regular leading-lady roles. She also appeared in Netflix's feature film In Love and Deep Water (Crazy Cruise), placing her in a globally distributed production alongside a large ensemble cast.
Her 2024 schedule was particularly active. In WOWOW's live-action adaptation of Hakubo no Chronicle, Airi played Akari Fushiki, a new Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare employee who becomes involved in cases surrounding the long-lived beings known as Okinaga. The role placed her alongside Tomohiro Kamiyama in one of the year's major serialized projects.
In March 2024, she starred in the first episode of TV Tokyo's original anthology drama Korekara Haishin Hajimemasu as Mio Katsuragi, a reserved municipal employee who begins confronting feelings she has difficulty expressing through the world of livestreaming.
The following month, Airi took the lead role of Shian Ubuki in Yomiuri TV's Secret Alliance. The series adapted a Korean webcomic and centered on a woman dealing with trauma and fear of men while becoming entangled in an increasingly distorted relationship involving a stalker and a charismatic playboy. The production's directors later described Airi's performance as the central axis of the drama.
During the summer of 2024 she appeared in TBS's Saionji-san wa Kaji wo Shinai as Rui Kusumi. Along with additional television appearances that year, the role reinforced how consistently Airi had moved from occasional supporting parts into major recurring characters and leading roles.
In 2025, Airi began the year with notable guest appearances. She played Miki, one of the daughters at the center of the inheritance dispute in the first episode of Nippon TV's Souzoku Tantei. In February she guest-starred in episode 16 of TV Asahi's long-running detective series Aibou Season 23.
Her largest 2025 role arrived in April when she starred as Maki Tomada in Yomiuri TV's Shikyu Renai. The drama followed a married woman whose emotional life changes after developing feelings for a man other than her husband. The production placed Airi at the center of an adult romantic drama dealing with marriage, desire, emotional repression and personal change, further demonstrating the shift in the kinds of adult characters she was playing compared with her early career.
Airi also made a guest appearance in the first episode of Fuji TV's Stingers: Keishicho Otori Sosa Kenshoshitsu in July 2025, playing a casino dealer connected to an undercover police operation. Later in the year she appeared in the romantic anthology Kimi to Shita Kiss wa Itsumademo.
On September 6, 2025, Airi publicly announced that she would marry model KOHEI. Both shared statements thanking supporters and stating that they intended to support one another while continuing their professional careers. The announcement represented a personal milestone but did not accompany any retreat from entertainment work.
Airi remained highly active in 2026. In January she appeared in the Osaka stage production Hime ga Aishita Dani Kozo at Umeda Arts Theater's Theater Drama City, adding another major theatrical credit to a career still dominated by screen acting and modeling.
In March 2026, she appeared as Ran Anzai opposite Honami Sato in the "Ran to Stella to Suizokukan" segment of the short-drama project Marumaru na Futari, written by Yoshikazu Okada. The project was released online and later broadcast in a special edited version on Fuji TV.
She returned to the stage in June for a new production of Europe Kikaku writer Makoto Ueda's Magare! Spoon, performed at IMM THEATER in Tokyo and Kyoto Theater. The cast included Taiga Suzuki, Yoshinori Okada, Shugo Oshinari, Yuki Tokito, Orakio, Hyoroku, Airi and Kazuyuki Aijima.
On television, Airi guest-starred in episode 5 of the live-action drama Link Click / Jikou Dairinin in May 2026 as Yuri Kayama, a woman at the center of an inheritance dispute surrounding a wealthy property owner. In July she also appeared on Fuji TV's Formula 1-related program F1 Side by Side.
As of August 2026, Airi remains signed to Amuse and is officially represented as an actress, talent and model. More than sixteen years after her professional debut, she has one of the most sustained mainstream entertainment careers among Sakura Gakuin's original graduates. Her career has evolved through several distinct stages: teenage fashion model, founding Sakura Gakuin member, Zexy commercial personality, Ray exclusive model and, increasingly, an actress capable of carrying films and television dramas as a lead performer.
Unlike Sakura Gakuin graduates whose public careers eventually became centered on music or who stepped away from entertainment, Airi built a long-term career primarily through modeling and acting. By 2026, her Sakura Gakuin period represents only an early chapter of a professional history that has continued almost uninterrupted since 2009.