Tokyo, December 2, 2025 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) will begin offering its “NEC AI Agent Service for Procurement Negotiations” in Japan starting this December. This service utilizes NEC’s proprietary AI technology, “Automated Negotiation AI,” to autonomously generate optimal transaction terms for procurement operations in the manufacturing industry and to negotiate with suppliers.
This service automates complex delivery date and quantity adjustment negotiations in manufacturing, drastically reducing the time spent on transaction negotiations. It enables rapid response to demand fluctuations and significantly improves operational efficiency.
NEC conducted a proof-of-concept (POC) at an NEC Group company in November 2024, successfully automating delivery date and quantity adjustments with suppliers for the procurement of approximately 1,300 parts.
In this proof-of-concept, the “automated agreement rate”—the percentage of agreements reached solely by AI without procurement personnel intervention—reached 95%. Negotiations concluded under optimal conditions for both the supplier and NEC. This confirmed that the adjustment time from negotiation initiation to completion, which previously took several hours to days, could be reduced to just approximately 80 seconds, achieving a significant improvement in operational efficiency.
In recent years, negotiations among stakeholders in the manufacturing industry have become increasingly complex due to diversifying demand and the extensive supply chains spanning from raw material procurement to final product delivery. Amid demands for shortening overall supply chain lead times and adapting to high-mix, low-volume production, procurement operations must address risks in a VUCA environment, making efficiency and speed through digital transformation (DX) advancement an urgent priority.
However, many companies lack the capacity to swiftly optimize production systems and procurement plans in response to unexpected fluctuations in demand, hindered by factors such as labor shortages, overly personalized work processes, and cost pressures. Particularly, adjusting delivery dates and quantities for parts and raw materials is a critical task directly linked to production planning and potentially leading to lost sales opportunities. Yet, due to its complexity and the time required for negotiations, many items face the challenge of insufficient coordination.
NEC developed Automated Negotiation AI to address these challenges, leveraging its proprietary AI technology cultivated through years of research. This technology enables systems to autonomously negotiate with business partners without human intervention, supporting the formation of optimal agreements. This allows for the coordination of procurement timing even for vast numbers of items that were previously unmanageable manually. By curbing excess inventory, preventing stockouts, and avoiding delivery delays, it creates a supply chain resilient to demand fluctuations. Through this service, NEC resolves challenges in increasingly complex supply chains and contributes to enhancing customer competitiveness.