Japan's NEC says AI slices its software development time, cost

BARCELONA, Spain -- Japan's NEC has used artificial intelligence to cut the labor costs for some software engineering tasks by as much as 70%, as part of a companywide experiment aimed at determining the most effective uses of the new technology for businesses.

Motoo Nishihara, NEC's chief technology officer, told Nikkei Asia that the experiment launched in May last year had already delivered some significant early achievements. The time spent preparing documents had been halved, while transcription of meeting minutes had fallen from 30 minutes to five.