NEC Unveils Groundbreaking AI Technology for Digitalizing Work Tasks Without Pre-Training
Tokyo, Japan – August 27, 2025 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the development of an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) technology capable of recognizing and digitalizing worker tasks across wide-area industrial worksites without the need for prior training. This cutting-edge solution leverages video footage from multiple cameras installed in expansive environments such as distribution warehouses, factories, and construction sites to optimize worksite operations and boost productivity.
Meeting the Challenge of Labor Shortages with Advanced AI
Industrial sectors worldwide are grappling with increasing labor shortages, particularly at facilities heavily dependent on manual labor. Efficient personnel allocation and operational streamlining have become critical priorities, yet achieving these goals demands precise visualization of working conditions and workflows. While existing AI technologies can recognize work tasks from video, they often require extensive preparation, including the collection of extensive on-site video data and time-consuming AI model training, which can delay deployment.
Furthermore, digitalizing work activities across large worksites introduces additional complexities. Multiple cameras capture various angles of workers, who often wear identical uniforms, making it difficult to consistently and accurately identify individuals across different video feeds. Traditional solutions have struggled with this problem, hindering efforts to consolidate task recognition results for each worker in real time.
Key Features of NEC’s AI Technology
NEC’s newly developed AI technology overcomes these challenges with two major innovations:
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Immediate Installation and Task Recognition Using Text Input Alone
NEC’s solution employs a vision-language model (VLM) that enables the system to recognize wide-ranging work tasks without any pre-training on video data. Instead, it utilizes simple text descriptions of tasks — for example, “retrieving packages from a shelf” or “pushing a cart to transport items” — to identify corresponding actions in video footage.
Traditionally, task recognition required collecting and annotating large amounts of video data before training AI models, a process that could take several weeks. Additionally, distinguishing relevant objects in cluttered industrial environments where multiple items intermingle posed significant difficulties. NEC’s technology bypasses these hurdles by first analyzing textual task descriptions to extract characteristic features with the VLM. Then, it detects objects interacted with by workers using a proprietary AI model designed to understand human-object relationships. By matching features extracted from text inputs and video frames, the system accurately identifies work tasks in real time, even in complex settings.
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Comprehensive Digitalization of Wide-Area Worksites Through Multi-Camera Integration
The technology integrates video streams from multiple cameras to create a digital twin — a three-dimensional virtual representation of the worksite. It estimates workers’ precise locations by referencing the two-dimensional coordinates from each camera and analyzing movement patterns. This enables the system to accurately track and identify individual workers over time, despite uniform appearance or changes in camera viewpoints.
Importantly, NEC’s technology automatically estimates essential camera parameters such as position and orientation, significantly reducing the time and effort required for on-site setup. This facilitates rapid deployment and immediate benefits in worksite visualization.
Anticipated Impact and Commercialization Plans
By providing real-time digitalization and visualization of labor activities at scale, NEC’s new technology is poised to revolutionize worksite management. It promises to improve overall productivity, optimize workforce allocation, and streamline complex workflows in industries facing critical labor constraints.
NEC plans to bring this technology to market by fiscal year 2026, helping industrial workplaces worldwide adapt to evolving operational demands and enhance efficiency through intelligent digital solutions.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation has long been a leader in integrating IT and network technologies, championing the brand statement “Orchestrating a brighter world.” Committed to delivering safety, security, fairness, and efficiency, NEC enables businesses and communities to address rapid societal and market changes while fostering sustainability and inclusivity. For more information, visit NEC’s official website.
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