UBIC’s software has developed well beyond the eDiscovery tools with which it first made its name in Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries. It has maintained and expanded its analytical capability in that field, but also in the wider field of behaviour analytics, using big data to anticipate behaviour and not merely to discover it retrospectively.

The word “predictive” in the usual eDiscovery sense relates to anticipating the coding decisions which a reviewer will make. Increasingly, it is coming to refer to the anticipation of risk from fraud, cartel, compliance and other regulatory matters, and across a wide range of industries and sectors including health, the evaluation of intellectual property and national security.

UBIC’s AI-based technology underlies much of this including its Virtual Data Scientist software and other data analysis tools integrated into its Lit i View® data management and analysis platform. It has recently been granted a patent for this technology in Japan. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Masahiro Morimoto makes it clear that this is not the end of UBC’s investment in this technology. He said:

We will continue to research and to develop our patented AI-based Predictive Coding technology and, where appropriate, acquire complementary intellectual property in order to expand its application potential.

There is a press release about the Japanese patent here.