May 24, 2017
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc.
SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.
FRONTEO, Inc.
Launch of a Project using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Improve Customer Satisfaction

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) (President and Group Chief Executive Officer: TakeshiKunibe) and SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. (President & CEO: Yoshihiko Shimizu) have assessed and verified
the effectiveness of KIBIT1, an artificial intelligence (AI) engine independently developed by FRONTEO,
Inc.2 (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board: Masahiro Morimoto), in analyzing data toimprove customer satisfaction. Based on this result, SMBC Nikko Securities will adopt KIBIT*1 in its efforts
to improve its customer services and to achieve company-wide work-style reform through the streamliningof business processes.
SMBC Nikko Securities has extensively examined how it can use artificial intelligence in order to offer
services beneficial to customers. In January 2017, the company started assessing the use of KIBIT in various
fields. Through a proof of concept (POC) using actual data, its effectiveness was verified.
More specifically, among responses of call center operators that were recorded in the record of inquiries
from customers, those that resulted in improved customer satisfaction, which operators were not aware of or
did not report, were identified with a high degree of accuracy. We are planning to start assessing theeffectiveness of KIBIT in extracting and classifying complaints and dissatisfactions that operators fail tonotice or that are hidden and difficult to identify superficially.
Key features and advantages of KIBIT include that it only needs a small amount of data to learn and takes
only a short time to make an assessment. The objective of our project is for KIBIT to learn tacit knowledge
accumulated at SMBC Nikko Securities to identify and share issues and knowledge that should be learned
and addressed in order for us to become a strong, powerful company that is immune to effects of the externalenvironment. KIBIT can also quickly organize a vast amount of records and identify the information we need,which is highly likely to help improve employee productivity. It is therefore expected to contribute to ourefforts for work-style reform.
SMBC Nikko Securities will expand the use of KIBIT throughout the company in order to not only
improve customer services but also to achieve the goals of work-style reform. FRONTEO will continue
offering support to facilitate the full-scale adoption of KIBIT in business operations.
All SMFG Group companies will make effective use of cutting-edge digital technology in various use
settings in our continuing efforts to improve services we offer to customers.

1

KIBIT is an artificial intelligence engine originated in Japan. It was independently developed by

FRONTEO by combining Landscaping, an AI-related technology, and behavior informatics. The name
“KIBIT” was coined by combining “kibi,” a Japanese word meaning subtlety, and “bit,” the smallest unit ofdigital information, to mean artificial intelligence that understands human subtleties. It can reproduce theway humans make judgments and select information by understanding the meaning of a sentence within atext and learning human tacit knowledge and sensitivities.
2FRONTEO is a data analysis company supporting big data and other information analysis using KIBIT, its

independently developed artificial intelligence engine. The company was established in August 2003 as acompany that supports eDiscovery (electronic evidence disclosure), a procedure for preserving, investigating
and analyzing evidence materials for the purpose of using them in international litigation, and computer
forensic investigations. Listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers section and the NASDAQ.
URL: http://www.fronteo.com/