Say hello to Kokoro
A new robot called Kokoro is selling travel insurance at Tokyo’s main international gateway, Narita Airport.
The robot was created by Hello Kitty creator Sanrio and software company Kyoei Sangyo and is being used on a trial basis, until May 2017, at a counter selling overseas travel insurance on the fourth floor of the south wing of Terminal 1.
Although the ‘woman’s’ job is to sell travel insurance, she can also help passengers with advice about the airport, including flight information and departure gates.
The words spoken by passengers are converted to text and sent to a cloud system for analysis. All of the information is gathered by the system and used to develop better answers to passenger questions.