LINE Yahoo Adopts 'UPWARD,' an AI Agent for Field Sales
LINE Yahoo is adopting 'UPWARD,' an AI agent for field sales, to support the launch of its new 'LINE Restaurant Plus' and 'LINE Beauty Plus' services. The platform will help efficiently promote these services to over 800,000 restaurants and beauty salons by digitizing sales activities, automatically logging visits and business cards, and optimizing sales routes to maximize merchant acquisition.
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- 📰 Published: April 14, 2026 at 20:00
- 🔍 Collected: April 14, 2026 at 11:31
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UPWARD Inc. (Location: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; hereinafter 'UPWARD') announces that LINE Yahoo Corporation (Location: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Takeshi Idezawa; hereinafter 'LINE Yahoo') has adopted 'UPWARD,' an AI agent for field sales.
LINE Yahoo plans to launch new services specializing in the food & beverage and beauty/barber industries, 'LINE Restaurant Plus' and 'LINE Beauty Plus,' starting June 2026. To efficiently promote these new services to over 800,000 restaurants and beauty salons in Japan, the company has adopted 'UPWARD' as its AI sales foundation to digitize field sales activities and enhance visit efficiency.
Expected Effects of Adopting UPWARD
Reliably digitizing visit records and business card information as 'corporate assets'
In new merchant acquisition sales, which involves more than 10 visits a day in addition to phone calls and administrative work, data entry is often postponed, creating a barrier to understanding the situation on the ground and planning sales strategies. The 'UPWARD' mobile app's AI-powered automatic visit recording and business card scanning (UPWARD AI Scan) automatically stores important field data in Salesforce as a 'corporate asset.' This data is then used for strategic sales decision-making, such as identifying key stores to focus on and analyzing the effectiveness of implemented measures.
Maximizing visit efficiency with a merchant development map
In acquiring new merchants, it is important to secure a sufficient number of visits while minimizing travel time, based on the negotiation status of each store. The 'UPWARD' mobile app's mapping function color-codes non-participating stores on a map according to their status, such as 'untapped' or 'under consideration.' This allows sales representatives to plan their visits starting from the map, preventing missed opportunities and overlapping assignments among staff. It also enables them to efficiently visit nearby stores during sudden pockets of free time, contributing to an increased number of visits and maximizing results.
Comment from Mr. Nobuo Kawashiro, Unit Manager, Product Marketing 2 Unit, OA & MINI Business SBU, Corporate Business Domain, LINE Yahoo Corporation
'As part of our efforts to support the digitalization of businesses such as restaurants and beauty salons, we launched 'LINE Restaurant Plus' and 'LINE Beauty Plus' with the aim of providing a new promotional and reservation experience based on the 'LINE Official Account.' The goal is to create better connections between users and stores and to make everyday decision-making smoother.
For the growth of these services, expanding our network of attractive member stores is crucial. Continuous merchant acquisition, in both quality and quantity, is essential to increase our touchpoints with diverse stores and broaden the valuable options available to users.
However, our sales activities faced challenges in optimizing visit destinations, managing negotiation histories, and sharing information within the team. We needed to build a more efficient and sophisticated sales structure.
To solve these issues, we introduced UPWARD. We highly rated its ability to simultaneously visualize and streamline sales activities by linking location data with CRM, as well as its intuitive design that is easy for our field sales representatives to use.
Moving forward, we will further enhance the quality and productivity of our sales activities by leveraging UPWARD and strengthen our partnerships with even more member stores. By continuing to provide services that are valuable to both users and stores, we will contribute to the further development of these businesses.'
Innovating the Last Mile of Field Operations with 'UPWARD'
'UPWARD' is an AI-based sales support service specializing in field and visiting sales. It offers automatic recording of customer interactions through its patented 'advanced geofencing' technology and various AI functions tailored for outside sales. It has been adopted by approximately 450 companies, primarily large enterprises that rely on face-to-face customer contact as a key sales channel.
Service Site: https://upward.jp/
'UPWARD' Introduction Materials: https://upward.jp/downloads/allservicematerials/
About UPWARD Inc.
Under its purpose 'to unlock the creativity of field workers and accelerate the growth of companies and society,' UPWARD Inc. provides DX services specialized in solving the challenges of field workers who visit sites and create value through offline contact with customers. By leveraging technology to create an environment where work can be performed with a single mobile device, the company aims for a world where people can be active regardless of their location or situation.
Company Profile
Company Name: UPWARD Inc.
Established: July 2016
Representative: Ryusuke Kaneki, CEO
Location: 26F Marunouchi Eiraku Building, 1-4-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Business: Development and provision of the field sales AI agent 'UPWARD'
URL: https://corp.upward.jp/
Press Inquiries
UPWARD Inc. PR Team
03-6897-3683
pr@upward.jp
LINE Yahoo plans to launch new services specializing in the food & beverage and beauty/barber industries, 'LINE Restaurant Plus' and 'LINE Beauty Plus,' starting June 2026. To efficiently promote these new services to over 800,000 restaurants and beauty salons in Japan, the company has adopted 'UPWARD' as its AI sales foundation to digitize field sales activities and enhance visit efficiency.
Expected Effects of Adopting UPWARD
Reliably digitizing visit records and business card information as 'corporate assets'
In new merchant acquisition sales, which involves more than 10 visits a day in addition to phone calls and administrative work, data entry is often postponed, creating a barrier to understanding the situation on the ground and planning sales strategies. The 'UPWARD' mobile app's AI-powered automatic visit recording and business card scanning (UPWARD AI Scan) automatically stores important field data in Salesforce as a 'corporate asset.' This data is then used for strategic sales decision-making, such as identifying key stores to focus on and analyzing the effectiveness of implemented measures.
Maximizing visit efficiency with a merchant development map
In acquiring new merchants, it is important to secure a sufficient number of visits while minimizing travel time, based on the negotiation status of each store. The 'UPWARD' mobile app's mapping function color-codes non-participating stores on a map according to their status, such as 'untapped' or 'under consideration.' This allows sales representatives to plan their visits starting from the map, preventing missed opportunities and overlapping assignments among staff. It also enables them to efficiently visit nearby stores during sudden pockets of free time, contributing to an increased number of visits and maximizing results.
Comment from Mr. Nobuo Kawashiro, Unit Manager, Product Marketing 2 Unit, OA & MINI Business SBU, Corporate Business Domain, LINE Yahoo Corporation
'As part of our efforts to support the digitalization of businesses such as restaurants and beauty salons, we launched 'LINE Restaurant Plus' and 'LINE Beauty Plus' with the aim of providing a new promotional and reservation experience based on the 'LINE Official Account.' The goal is to create better connections between users and stores and to make everyday decision-making smoother.
For the growth of these services, expanding our network of attractive member stores is crucial. Continuous merchant acquisition, in both quality and quantity, is essential to increase our touchpoints with diverse stores and broaden the valuable options available to users.
However, our sales activities faced challenges in optimizing visit destinations, managing negotiation histories, and sharing information within the team. We needed to build a more efficient and sophisticated sales structure.
To solve these issues, we introduced UPWARD. We highly rated its ability to simultaneously visualize and streamline sales activities by linking location data with CRM, as well as its intuitive design that is easy for our field sales representatives to use.
Moving forward, we will further enhance the quality and productivity of our sales activities by leveraging UPWARD and strengthen our partnerships with even more member stores. By continuing to provide services that are valuable to both users and stores, we will contribute to the further development of these businesses.'
Innovating the Last Mile of Field Operations with 'UPWARD'
'UPWARD' is an AI-based sales support service specializing in field and visiting sales. It offers automatic recording of customer interactions through its patented 'advanced geofencing' technology and various AI functions tailored for outside sales. It has been adopted by approximately 450 companies, primarily large enterprises that rely on face-to-face customer contact as a key sales channel.
Service Site: https://upward.jp/
'UPWARD' Introduction Materials: https://upward.jp/downloads/allservicematerials/
About UPWARD Inc.
Under its purpose 'to unlock the creativity of field workers and accelerate the growth of companies and society,' UPWARD Inc. provides DX services specialized in solving the challenges of field workers who visit sites and create value through offline contact with customers. By leveraging technology to create an environment where work can be performed with a single mobile device, the company aims for a world where people can be active regardless of their location or situation.
Company Profile
Company Name: UPWARD Inc.
Established: July 2016
Representative: Ryusuke Kaneki, CEO
Location: 26F Marunouchi Eiraku Building, 1-4-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Business: Development and provision of the field sales AI agent 'UPWARD'
URL: https://corp.upward.jp/
Press Inquiries
UPWARD Inc. PR Team
03-6897-3683
pr@upward.jp