JapanConstruction and engineering2023 – ongoingKajima Corporation
Kajima ChatAI in-house generative AI chat
Kajima banned ChatGPT over leak risk, then gave 20,000 group staff a private version used about 1,000 times a day
Problem
In April 2023 Kajima, one of Japan's largest general contractors, banned business use of ChatGPT because information typed into it might be reused and leak. Staff still wanted generative AI for drafting, translation and programming.
Approach
The company built Kajima ChatAI on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service inside its own network, with employee login and usage logs, and with inputs excluded from external model training. It opened the tool from mid-2023 to about 20,000 employees of Kajima and its domestic and overseas group companies, and shared prompt examples on the intranet.
Results
Takeaway
A private deployment let Kajima lift its outright ban within a few months. After three months, use centred on programming and spreadsheet functions and was lower on site than in offices; Kajima published usage counts but no time savings.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Construction and engineering
- Business function
- Internal work and knowledge managementIT and R&D
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
The company magazine says Kajima banned business use of ChatGPT in April 2023 and started its own tool in June 2023 for about 20,000 group employees, built on Azure OpenAI Service with login and logging. It reports about 1,000 uses per weekday three months in, mostly for programming and spreadsheet functions, with less use among site staff. It warns that answers can be wrong and depend on prompt quality.
AIsmiley, citing Kajima's August 2023 announcement, reports the rollout to about 20,000 employees of Kajima and its group companies. It notes the earlier ChatGPT ban over leak concerns and the intranet-based design that keeps inputs out of external training.
Full details are in the original sources.
