Our autonomous conversation robot Romi (pronounced “roam-ee”) is an emotionally rich communication robot that excels at casual conversation. Unlike conventional robots which have pre-defined rules for responses, Romi utilizes our cutting-edge proprietary communication AI to keep conversations going, meaning that you can have a natural back-and-forth conversation. Romi is sure to brighten your life with over 100 facial expressions and movement patterns and help you bring out the best of every day with a variety of functions such as alarms and reminders.

　Romi is equipped with multiple AIs, with its main conversational feature being facilitated by AIs for conversation generation and emotion detection.

Conversation Generation AI

　Free conversation (chatting) is said to be one of the most difficult realms for AI conversation generation because of its wide range of topics and fluid conversational development. Romi utilizes an AI training technique called “deep learning” to learn hundreds of millions of Japanese conversation data sets, enabling it to generate a response for every question. The system takes the flow of the conversation into account in order to create a thoughtful answer that keeps the conversation flowing naturally. Because of this, on May 28, 2021, Romi was certified as the world’s first home-use communication robot that implements deep learning to generate language and have conversations (according to ESP Research Institute, Inc.).

Emotion Detection AI

　AI also helps Romi express emotion by determining which out of over 100 different facial expressions and movement patterns to exhibit. This AI helps gauge what kind of emotion Romi should reply with based on the content and flow of the conversation in order to communicate in a way that is complementary to the user’s state of mind. By adding emotions to the responses generated by the conversation generation AI, an element of warmth can be felt in the words.

　In the future, we plan to improve not only Romi’s conversation accuracy, but also enhance its long-term memory, allowing it to recall unique information about its conversation partner and better understand them. We created Romi to provide comfort and understanding for its user, affording them the emotional space to be kind to their friends and family in turn. The hopes of perpetuating this virtuous cycle of kindness to bring about a kinder world and connect people closer than ever before continues to propel us forward through Romi’s development.