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 a decade of training, the artisans' specialized judgment is based on human intuition and experience, a 'tacit knowledge' that even artisans themselves cannot convey. 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.

With Kura Sushi, in 2020 we sent the TUNA SCOPE data to Dalian, China. Using this AI to locally assess tuna established a way to purchase stock without requiring artisans to travel abroad during the pandemic.

TUNA SCOPE improved the speed and consistency of quality assessments by eliminating the errors and judgment variability that arose when humans performed the task over long hours. Our system also allows speed to be improved by simply increasing the number of smartphones.

While achieving a digital transformation of the industry, we also hoped that TUNA SCOPE would gain global attention as a groundbreaking solution that turned COVID-related disruption into an opportunity.

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.