左から永田社長、社家社長、Ｒｅｔａｉｌ－ＣＩＸの北川亮一副社長（From the left: President Nagata, President Shake, and Retail-CIX Vice President Ryoichi Kitagawa）

NTT AI-CIX and Retail AI, a subsidiary of Trial Holdings, which operates discount stores, have established a joint venture called Retail-CIX Co., Ltd. to start a distribution supply chain business.
NTT AI-CIX President Ippei Shake will be appointed president of the new company Retail-CIX.
Initially, the company will provide advanced demand forecasting using POS data and supply chain optimization services using chained AI agents between business processes.
A chained AI agent is a technology in which various AIs autonomously carry out tasks to solve problems and work together across business and industries.

Trial Holdings President Hiroyuki Nagata said, “We are focusing on reforms that will eliminate waste, inconsistency, and overburdening the entire industry. As part of our efforts to optimize the entire distribution supply chain, we have achieved order optimization and shelf allocation optimization, so we have decided to establish a joint venture to move the business forward.”

President Shaka explains, “We will develop an order optimization AI service. This service will appropriately control order quantities and timing based on demand forecasts. This will minimize the associated costs.”

To optimize the entire distribution supply chain, it is necessary to effectively connect the information held by stakeholders such as manufacturers, wholesalers, retail centers, and stores.

President Shaka says, “The basis is to eliminate data fragmentation, but the key is how to achieve sharing and cooperation while ensuring information acquisition and accuracy. Necessary information is shared while being processed into the necessary state. This is important, and AI is the key here.”

In the future, we plan to collaborate with multiple manufacturing, distribution, and sales companies. We aim to develop a service that uses a chain-type AI agent to solve structural issues caused by existing industry practices.

This will reconstruct Japan’s entire distribution structure by “visualizing supply and demand,” “reducing inventory,” “standardizing work,” and “optimizing delivery,” creating a sustainable model.

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