In what could be the latest SoftBank trick for the disappearance of ungodly amounts of money, the Japanese investment company will pay three billion dollars a year to make companies in their portfolio to experiment with AI agents.
SoftBank and Openi have announced on Monday to form a joint investment for the development and market of a new product called Cristal Intelligence, which will build the latest models of OPENAI explanation to create AI agents that will complete tasks without human intervention.
Said softbank in a statement If it planned to automate more than 100 million flow of work among its companies, which could include the generation of financial statements, compiling documents and managing customer inquiries.
“By automating and autonomying all its tasks and flows, SoftBank Corp will transform its business and services and create a new value,” said the company.
Openii has already launched an overview of his agent tool operator for their top subscribers, who pay $ 200 a month and now have a privilege Not by clicking the keys to schedule your own hairstyles.
The new Cristal Intelligence System will create similar agents, but they will be trained for corporate customers and adapted to their systems and needs, SoftBank said. At least it will initially be placed solely on “Main Companies in Japan”.
Softbank, led by its chairman Masayoshi Son, built a strong reputation in a technological risk space with early investments in companies such as Uber, Dordash and Alibaba. But in recent years, his bets have been significantly less successful, especially when it comes to transforming the nature of work. It lost billions On Wework, for example, and threw $ 375 million in now Juicewhich promised to automate and disrupt pizza formation.
The Cristal Intelligence partnership deepens its financial stake in Openi. Softbank is allegedly In conversations on the role of $ 25 billion directly to the company and she has already announced a collaboration called ViewAnother common investment, including the Openi that plans to spend $ 500 billion in the next four years to build an AI infrastructure such as data centers.
Company’s big money bets come in the midst of many hype -Ao potential of AI agents, but also as a breakthrough of Chinese companies Deepseek They asked questions about whether cheaper, more efficient developers ai underestimate openii, what is it loss of money On its most expensive subscription plan due to the cost of launching technology.