Mitsui Chemicals develops AI agent to speed up R&D literature reviews

Tokyo — Mitsui Chemicals has developed an AI agent capable of analysing chemical structural formulas in scientific literature, a tool which it says could reduce the time researchers spend on literature reviews by "at least 80%." 

The Japanese chemicals group has begun an internal pilot trial of the system and aims to complete testing by the end of March, with plans to introduce the technology into full-scale operation in fiscal 2026 (starting April).

According to the company, reviewing patents and academic publications to identify information about chemical compounds remains a key but time-consuming part of research and development.

“In the case of polymers and organic compounds with complex structures, it is difficult to accurately identify a compound’s name from its structural formula alone,” Mitsui Chemicals said.

As a result, researchers often need to manually examine large volumes of literature to determine the relationship between chemical structures and compound names.

The newly developed AI agent addresses this challenge by enabling AI to interpret chemical structural formulas directly, allowing it to analyse both images and text within scientific documents.

“This AI agent enables AI to read chemical structural formulas — something that had previously been unfeasible,” the company said.

Using this capability, the system can identify compound names and simultaneously extract related information contained in research papers or patents.

The information, said Mitsui Chemicals, include applications, physical properties, manufacturing methods and experimental conditions.

Furthermore, the AI agent can also consult chemical databases and web sources, generating more comprehensive compound profiles.

The system also includes a "report-generation feature" that organises extracted information into structured summaries designed to support analysis and decision-making in R&D projects.

According to Mitsui Chemicals, early validation tests showed that literature reviews using the AI agent reduced research time by at least 80%.

“Literature reviews that previously took about a month were shortened to a day or so,” the company said.

The technology, it added, allows researchers to focus more on creative research activities rather than manual information gathering.

Mitsui Chemicals said it plans to continue applying digital technologies and AI tools in R&D, with the aim of improving efficiency.