TunaScope / Dentsu

Tuna is one of the ocean’s greatest treasures and Japan has long been home to artisans who have mastered the skill of tuna examination. Although scarce in number, these master artisans have historically played a vital role in upholding the culinary traditions revolving around this fish. It is a tacit skill acquired by years of experience and individual intuition that allows artisans to determine properties such as the flavor, freshness and texture of a tuna just by eye. Today, the number of successors of this craft are dwindling, so we decided to pass the torch to AI. We want to ensure that people around the world can enjoy the same standard of delicious tuna, even into the far future. We created TUNA SCOPE* – an AI-based system that instantaneously determines the quality of a given tuna based on the cross section of its tail. Through deep learning, bulks of cross-sectional tail images, and data on quality assessments conducted by master artisans, we successfully passed on this sophisticated Japanese skill to the AI system. By doing so, we made it possible to assess the quality of tuna anywhere in the world, simultaneously, with remarkable accuracy.