Upstage and AIRIC Corporation Partner to Promote Business Transformation and Efficiency in the Insurance Industry through Generative AI

Upstage AI Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director: Hiroyuki Matsushita, hereinafter "Upstage") has announced a partnership with AIRIC Corporation (Headquarters: Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director and CEO: Ryuji Katsumoto, Stock Code: 7325, hereinafter "AIRIC Corporation") to contribute to the transformation and efficiency of insurance business operations through the use of generative AI (Generative AI).

Through this partnership, both companies will jointly develop and provide advanced AI solutions specialized in the insurance field, promoting digital transformation (DX) and contributing to the improvement of overall industry services.

Background of the Partnership

In recent years, the insurance industry has been facing the urgent need for digitalization and DX promotion. Many insurance companies still handle large amounts of unstructured data such as paper application forms, invoices, PDFs, and handwritten documents, making manual input and verification tasks a bottleneck for efficiency. Such cumbersome document processing not only reduces productivity but also carries the risk of human error.

Additionally, insurance business is complex with numerous laws and regulations, requiring specialized knowledge and effort to understand and comply with related laws such as the Insurance Business Act. Against this background, the insurance industry has a high demand for DX, and the use of generative AI is gaining attention as an important theme for the future among domestic insurance companies.

On the other hand, generative AI (including large language models/LLM), which has rapidly developed in recent years, possesses advanced natural language understanding and generation capabilities, making it a technology expected to solve such challenges in insurance business.

For example, in the claim payment assessment process, AI can interpret manuals and regulations based on the submitted information to make assessments, presenting the judgment results, reasons, and grounds. This use of generative AI has the potential to simultaneously achieve faster information processing and improved judgment accuracy.

By introducing such cutting-edge technology to the field, it is expected to improve the efficiency of insurance payment and contract review processes, strengthen compliance responses, and enhance customer service.

Roles of Both Companies

In this partnership, both companies will leverage their respective strengths in the following roles.

AIRIC Corporation

AIRIC Corporation will provide a wealth of insurance product databases and business insights accumulated through the operation of the insurance shop "Hoken Clinic" and the development of insurance analysis systems.

For example, AIRIC Corporation possesses data on the terms and conditions of life and non-life insurance companies and has the know-how to quickly and accurately extract necessary information using the search system "AS FiNDER". Additionally, AIRIC Corporation has a wide range of business channels with insurance companies and agents, playing a role in the deployment of solutions within the industry.

Upstage AI Inc.

Upstage AI Inc. will provide business-specialized AI solutions that enable companies to safely and practically utilize generative AI. Leveraging Document AI technology with a wealth of implementation experience among global companies and Japanese-language specialized LLM, Upstage AI Inc. will support the construction and operation of RAG/AI agents, making internal documents and business knowledge usable by AI. Through the digitization of paper documents, advanced information extraction, and the generation of natural language-based Q&A, Upstage AI Inc. will transform paper data that has been dormant in the field into "corporate assets for the AI era" and lead the technical application of generative AI in insurance business.

Partnership Content

Under this partnership, AIRIC Corporation and Upstage will jointly advance the following initiatives.

Joint planning and implementation of insurance business solutions
Both companies will combine their strengths to plan and develop generative AI solutions specialized in the insurance field (e.g., presenting judgment reasons and grounds in claim payment assessment and underwriting assessment processes). They will jointly design practical functions that meet field needs and quickly build prototypes.

Promotion of Proof of Concept (PoC)
Both companies will cooperate in conducting PoCs of the developed solutions in the actual operations of insurance companies and agents. Leveraging AIRIC Corporation's industry network to recruit cooperating parties, they will verify the solutions using field data to evaluate the effectiveness and accuracy of generative AI while refining the solutions based on feedback.

Market deployment and support
Based on the insights gained from PoCs, both companies will provide the refined solutions as a joint service to the insurance industry. They will aim for smooth deployment and establishment in insurance companies and agencies by combining AIRIC Corporation's sales channel-based introduction proposals and Upstage's technical support system-based introduction support.

Future Prospects

Currently, both companies are receiving numerous inquiries from life and non-life insurance companies regarding PoCs (Proof of Concept) and business system development centered around claim payment assessment and underwriting assessment processes.

AIRIC Corporation's business insights, data assets, and networks in the insurance industry, combined with Upstage's generative AI technology, have already started proposal activities, gaining high interest and positive feedback in multiple cases.

In particular, expectations are growing not only for the efficiency of document reading but also for AI utilization that supports "reading," "understanding," and "judging," marking the beginning of a new phase in the use of generative AI in the insurance industry.

In the future, both companies will advance the verification of real business operations through PoCs, aiming to build an implementation model of "organizational knowledge × generative AI" in the insurance industry.

AIRIC Corporation Director and Vice President
Kenjiro Takedabe Comment

Our company has been working under the banner of "People × Insurance × Technology" to provide solutions that bring innovation to the insurance industry. Generative AI is a groundbreaking technology that has the potential to transform the way business is conducted. We are very pleased to be able to partner with Upstage, a company with outstanding AI technology.

By combining our insights and data in the insurance field with Upstage's cutting-edge AI, we are confident that we can create solutions that contribute to solving long-standing challenges in the insurance industry, such as the efficiency of document processing and compliance with regulations. First, we will aim to successfully implement PoCs that fully leverage the strengths of both companies and accelerate the DX of the entire Japanese insurance business.

AIRIC Corporation Director and Vice President: Kenjiro Takedabe

Upstage AI Inc. Representative Director Hiroyuki Matsushita Comment

We believe that this partnership will open up new possibilities for the use of generative AI in the insurance industry. By combining the vast insurance data and business knowledge that AIRIC Corporation has cultivated over the years with Upstage's cutting-edge Document AI technology and Japanese-language specialized LLM, we aim to create AI solutions that are truly useful in the field.

Under a secure and reliable environment, we will provide mechanisms that allow field staff to confidently utilize the power of AI, aiming to improve the efficiency and sophistication of important business operations such as insurance payments and contract reviews. Through this partnership, we aim to strongly promote the DX of the Japanese insurance industry and bring positive changes to the entire industry.

Upstage AI Inc.