JapanConsumer goods2023 – ongoing

Lion Corp

LION AI Chat, LINK Chat R&D search and Dify agents

Lion cut R&D document retrieval to one-thirtieth of the earlier time or less with an in-house RAG search

In progressCompany's own claimOfficial ↗

Problem

Finding one item of R&D information took researchers about 5 to 60 minutes. Employees also needed a safe way to use generative AI.

Approach

Lion released LION AI Chat in May 2023 to about 5,000 employees, built on the ChatGPT API through Azure OpenAI. It added LINK Chat, a RAG system that answers from the internal R&D database and shows source documents. It also adopted the low-code platform Dify so non-IT staff can build agents, for example a customer-support draft tool at an affiliate. Staff review every draft.

Results

30分の1以下retrieval time per item with LINK Chat relative to the earlier 5 to 60 minutes, per LionCompany's own claim[1]

14%share of employees using AI almost daily in a March 2025 union surveyCompany's own claim[1]

23%share of employees using AI once or twice a week in the same surveyCompany's own claim[1]

Takeaway

A March 2025 union survey found regular use was still under 40% of staff.

Sources

報告1「ライオンの生成AIの導入と人材育成について」
Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT)26 Mar 2026Company publication
ライオン、社内AIで社員データ活用法開発の裏側は？：「社内AI」を始めるということ
ITmedia ビジネスオンライン25 Mar 2024News article

Source summaries

[1]Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT)26 Mar 2026

Report by a Lion Digital Strategy Department staff member at a JILPT forum held 20 January 2026. It covers LION AI Chat, LINK Chat, Dify agents and a March 2025 usage survey. It gives the retrieval-time cut and survey shares.

[2]ITmedia ビジネスオンライン25 Mar 2024

The article says LION AI Chat was released in May 2023 to about 5,000 employees. It describes a search-plus-generative-AI tool then in development, which cut retrieval from 5 to 10 minutes to under 2 minutes in testing.

Full details are in the original sources.

Added 2 Nov 2026 · Updated 2 Nov 2026