AI accelerates Yokohama tire development

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in the tire industry, and Yokohama has announced the full-scale deployment of its own generative AI system starting August 2026. This system uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to search through technical documentation accumulated within the company and provides answers based on the content. The new technology is expected to further accelerate product development by enabling engineers to quickly access the technical data they need for decision-making, including during material development.

Since October 2020, the company has been using its proprietary AI-based system HAICoLab, and today AI is applied, for example, to predict physical properties of rubber compounds and tire performance characteristics, as well as in the development of new compounds and mold design. Yokohama states that such technologies are now being used more widely by its developers. However, the technical data required for decision-making is contained within a vast volume of documents, making the creation of a system capable of fast information retrieval and delivery a key task in achieving corporate goals.

Thanks to the new system, employees can now input questions, and the generative AI searches for the most relevant information in the company's internal technical documents and delivers responses. A mechanism has also been developed that helps the integrated AI agent better understand the meaning of questions and improves answer accuracy. Employees can verify the validity of the responses and use them in their decision-making processes.