Kura Sushi is Japan’s largest sellers of tuna by volume.

To procure stock, the sushi chain’s skilled artisans traveled abroad, using expert judgment to directly evaluate the quality of tuna for purchase.

However, travel restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible for artisans to evaluate and purchase on-site as they had before.

To ensure that it could continue delivering delicious tuna to consumers amid these supply threats, Kura Sushi adopted a technology developed by our agency, seeking to overturn industry conventions with a new AI-driven approach to purchasing.

The TUNA SCOPE AI uses deep learning to master Japanese artisans' ability to determine tuna quality from tail cross-sections.

Honed over more than a decade of training, the artisans' specialized judgment is based on human intuition and experience, a 'tacit knowledge' that even the artisans themselves cannot convey in words. Passing on such skills is difficult, with trainees continuing to decline.

Amid this, we began the project in 2017. After two years of R&D, TUNA SCOPE was implemented in 2019, providing the quality-evaluation expertise of Japanese artisans simultaneously to anyone in the world.

Working with Kura Sushi, in 2020 we discovered that TUNA SCOPE offers new value through its ability to overcome the pandemic with remote purchasing. We established a way to purchase stock without requiring artisans to travel abroad, achieving a digital transformation of quality assessments that had relied on the skills of a limited few.

We unveiled TUNA SCOPE's AI-driven purchasing as a new approach to overcoming pandemic-related disruptions. The AI we developed not only made it possible to overcome strict travel restrictions during a global pandemic, but also provided a story that we used to launch a new product, 'AI Tuna', consisting of tuna specially selected by TUNA SCOPE.

By presenting the initiative as a groundbreaking solution that overcame the shared global COVID-19 crisis through the creative use of AI, we hoped that TUNA SCOPE would generate interest and news around the world.

We attempted the world's first AI-driven remote purchasing, and succeeded in procuring several hundred tons of tuna far faster than was previously possible.

In July 2020, TUNA SCOPE's AI-driven purchasing was unveiled as ‘a new approach’ to overcoming pandemic-related supply disruptions. Tuna selected by the AI as the highest quality stock from among several hundred tons was also released as a new product, ‘AI Tuna’, sold at 461 Kura Sushi stores around Japan. We conducted a launch campaign that included TV commercials, and the product remains on sale as of March 2021.

We are also developing the AI-driven judgment as a global quality standard.

TUNA SCOPE Certified products are being marketed around the world, including New York and Singapore.

Despite the pandemic, AI Tuna achieved three times the forecast sales. The initiative has become a global sensation, covered by over 1,500 media outlets in 57 countries as an innovation that will transform the fisheries industry beyond the current pandemic.

TUNA SCOPE has also been selected to receive assistance from the Japanese Fisheries Agency. With government support, we are expanding our efforts to tackle the new challenge of tuna stock depletion.

At present, the global tuna business mostly trades on the basis of weight.

This prioritization of quantity at the expense of quality leads to rampant overfishing that damages tuna stocks.

In promoting 'quality' as the trading criteria, TUNA SCOPE has the potential to curb overfishing by shift business standards away from the focus on quantity.

By tackling skills and resource challenges, we hope to create a society where everyone can enjoy delicious tuna into the future.