By Kazuma Nagahara / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
Japanese megabank Mizuho Bank Ltd. on Monday announced that it will launch a service featuring an AI assistant, developed in-house, that will handle customer inquiries interactively via a smartphone app.
The service will start in September, but Mizuho plans to upgrade the platform in the future to make it more useful to customers by enabling it to handle complex inquiries such as ones regarding asset formation.
On the app, Mizuho's official mascot, Aomaru, will provide round-the-clock answers to user questions on topics such as address change procedures. Customers will be able to ask questions via voice chat or text input. Mizuho has teamed up with U.S.-based OpenAI to improve the AI assistant's capabilities in interaction and information processing. So Aomaru will be able to ask follow-up questions during interactions with users to dig deeper into the issue they are inquiring about and provide tailored responses.
Japanese megabanks are stepping up efforts to utilize artificial intelligence. Mizuho Financial Group Inc.--the parent company of Mizuho Bank--plans to invest up to 100 billion yen in developing and implementing AI over the three fiscal years through March 2029. Earlier this month, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. reached an agreement with Google LLC to form a strategic partnership to utilize AI in its financial services for individual customers. In February, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. launched a service for customers featuring generative AI powered by technology from IBM Japan Ltd.
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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.
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May 19, 2026 07:19 ET (11:19 GMT)
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