ITOCHU Corporation (Headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it concluded a business partnership agreement with BELLSYSTEM24, Inc. (Headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Hiroshi Kajiwara, President, Representative Director; hereinafter “BELLSYSTEM24”) and AVILEN, Inc. (Headquartered in Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Kotaro Takahashi, Representative Director; hereinafter “AVILEN”), a company supporting corporate AI talent strategies and advanced, data-driven organizational management, to promote the corporate implementation of AI agents.

Currently, more than half of Japanese companies are using generative AI, but only about 10% are achieving results that exceed their expectations.^*1 Key challenges include the shortage of skilled personnel and expertise. In addition, the issues and barriers to the use of AI vary by industry, the size of the company, and the company’s unique business processes, making it difficult to deliver sufficient results by providing partial support or simply introducing tools. Accordingly, there is a need for support systems tailored to each company’s challenges and goals.

BELLSYSTEM24 leverages the operational expertise, accumulated conversation data, and business knowledge it has gained from the BPO^*2 and contact center operations it has implemented for over 1,500 companies, and it supports corporations in the growth of their businesses in collaboration with various technology firms, including generative AI companies. AVILEN is a technology company specializing in AI and data utilization. It applies its expertise in AI talent development and focuses on the corporate implementation of AI and the expansion of AI talent. Notably, AVILEN has been ranked no. 1 in the industry^*3 for nine consecutive terms in the online training program for the E Qualification AI engineer exam.

Through this partnership, ITOCHU aims to make it possible for its clients to efficiently and effectively implement AI agents centered on the ITOCHU Digital Business Group. This will be accomplished by combining BELLSYSTEM24’s consulting expertise in business process transformation and solution operations with AVILEN’s strengths in AI development and its team of approximately 400 engineers. Specifically, the partners will:
1. Visualize business processes and workflows to analyze the optimal allocation of tasks to humans and AI and design and develop AI agents specialized for the challenges each company faces in their businesses.
2. Provide reskilling programs for employees to develop AI talent after the implementation of AI agents, supporting the formation of digital organizations.
3. Design and propose BPO solutions for post-AI agent operations and tasks that require human intervention.

ITOCHU actively pursues broad partnerships in the field of AI utilization, aiming for the dynamic and seamless implementation of AI in collaboration with optimal partners. Going forward, we will continue to support the construction of sustainable business models based on market-in thinking that meets the needs of corporations.