Key facts
- Sumitomo Corp. has partnered with Sakana AI to distribute AI solutions to its 100,000 clients.
- Sakana AI's 'Automatic Proposal Generation Application' is now in production at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC Group).
- The SMBC application utilizes a multi-agent system to automate proposal generation for wholesale banking advisory.
- This tool significantly reduces the time required for generating client proposals, from weeks to hours.
- The partnership aims to accelerate AI adoption in Japan and modernize financial advisory services.
Sumitomo Corp. has announced a partnership with AI startup Sakana AI to deploy the company's artificial intelligence models across Sumitomo's extensive network of approximately 100,000 client companies. This collaboration is expected to significantly boost the adoption of homegrown AI technology within Japan, particularly among small and medium-sized businesses.
Sakana AI has already demonstrated the practical application of its technology through a successful deployment with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC Group). The bank implemented Sakana AI's 'Automatic Proposal Generation Application' for its wholesale banking division. This system employs a sophisticated multi-agent architecture, where specialized AI agents collaborate to gather financial and non-financial data, formulate hypotheses, draft strategic narratives, and perform quality evaluations and fact-checking.
The impact of this technology on SMBC's operations has been substantial. The bank reports that generating proposals for large corporate clients, which previously took one to two weeks, can now be completed in minutes to a few hours. This efficiency gain allows relationship bankers to focus more on client interactions and strategic advice rather than administrative tasks.
Sakana AI, founded by former Google Brain researchers David Ha and Llion Jones, positions itself as a provider of embedded AI agent orchestration for high-value enterprise workflows, with a specific focus on the Japanese market. The company views this SMBC deployment as an initial step, with plans to extend similar AI tooling to other areas within the banking group.