Cellpromote's "Website Learning AI Chatbot" Built for Kashima City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Begins Full Operation

Cellpromote Inc. (Representative Director: Ryota Hayashi, Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, hereinafter "Cellpromote"), which promotes corporate growth through Digital Transformation (DX) support, announces that the "Website Learning AI Chatbot" built for Kashima City, Ibaraki Prefecture (Mayor: Shinichi Taguchi, hereinafter "Kashima City") based on their partnership for DX promotion, will begin full operation from April 1, 2026.

■Background to Full Operation

Since June 2025, Cellpromote has been supporting Kashima City as a private partner responsible for DX promotion, providing hands-on assistance from visualizing operational issues to considering measures and building systems.

Traditionally, a large number of inquiries received at Kashima City's service counters and by phone were routine questions, leaving city officials unable to allocate sufficient resources to more complex consultation tasks that require their full attention. In response to these challenges, Cellpromote built a "Website Learning AI Chatbot" for Kashima City, which automatically answers routine inquiries using AI. By entrusting AI with questions it can handle, the workload on officials is reduced, and citizens can access necessary information 24 hours a day, regardless of holidays or closing hours.

A survey conducted by the Kashima City DX and Administrative Reform Promotion Office during a demonstration experiment held from December 18, 2025, to February 28, 2026, confirmed the effectiveness of the chatbot in improving citizen convenience and reducing the burden of inquiry handling on officials. Based on these results, after making necessary improvements, full operation will commence on April 1, 2026.

■Results of the Demonstration Experiment

In a user survey during the demonstration experiment, approximately 83% of respondents answered that it "was helpful." Comments received included "easier to understand than the city's website," "available 24 hours a day," and "polite language." There were also cases where users were able to take concrete next steps without needing to contact the service counter.

The estimated number of inquiries during the demonstration period was approximately 2,360. Calculating at 3 minutes per inquiry and an average staff hourly cost of 3,284 yen, an estimated operational reduction effect of approximately 118 hours and 388,000 yen is projected. If the current usage level is maintained throughout the year, an annual reduction of approximately 590 hours and 1.938 million yen is expected.

■Improvements Made for Full Operation

As improvements based on the demonstration experiment, the accuracy of AI responses and the organization of reference data were enhanced through log analysis. Furthermore, by migrating to an embedded format on the official city website, user access steps were significantly shortened.

■"Website Learning AI Chatbot" Overview

This system combines the conversational AI "Claude" from Anthropic, Inc. with RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology to generate responses based on publicly available information on Kashima City's official website. Featuring 24/7 availability, instant responses, and automatic data updates, it will be available on Kashima City's official website from the afternoon of April 1, 2026.

■Future Outlook

This initiative marks Cellpromote's first case of DX support for a local government. Leveraging its strength in hands-on support that does not depend on specific SaaS or products, this case, which provided consistent support from conception to full operation, will be an important milestone in expanding into the public sector. Cellpromote aims to further develop DX measures toward Kashima City's goal of becoming a "Smart & Compact City," and will utilize the expertise gained from this case to expand support to other local governments and businesses.