KDDI Announces Plan to Start Service of Search Engine Using Generative AI, Collaboration with Google Cloud Japan

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:44 JST, October 29, 2025

KDDI Corp. announced Tuesday that it will start a new search engine service using a generative artificial intelligence in the spring of 2026 in collaboration with Google Cloud Japan, a Google-affiliated firm.

The service will search for contents of Japanese media and websites about living information with the help of the generative AI.

By limiting the range of the media content from which KDDI will obtain permissions to use, KDDI aims to build a model of search engine using generative AI that respects copyrights.

The new service will use Gemini, Google’s generative AI.

Six companies, including Kakaku.com Inc., an operator of a website to compare prices; Natasha Inc., which distribute news about music; and Renga Inc., which operates a website distributing word-of-mouth information about condominiums, will participate in the KDDI plan.

The AI in the new search engine will answer users’ questions via texts or voice messages in line with their interests and concerns.

KDDI then wants to expand the range of partners to news media and will consider how to properly compensate partners.

“We will connect [users and companies possessing the content] through a system that is beneficial for both,” said KDDI President Hiromichi Matsuda at a business event on Tuesday.

Unpermitted use of news articles and other content by generative AI programs has become a worldwide problem, and there has been a slew of lawsuits alleging that the AI programs infringe on copyrights.

It is also feared that use by generative AI programs may cause the spread of information for which the veracity is unknown.

Thus, it is a task to tackle ways to secure the reliability of services using generative AI.