Obayashi Corporation pilots Tektome's multi-intelligence platform for statutory and ordinance research

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, August 19, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Tektome Inc. is providing Obayashi Corporation (“Obayashi”) with its construction-specific agentic intelligence platform, Tektome, now piloted for statutory and local ordinance research in the early design phase. The initiative is part of Obayashi's broader efforts to leverage generative AI and is being carried out through collaboration between teams involved in design and regulatory compliance.

Background: mapping statutory issues from the earliest design stages

Design and construction work requires checking a wide range of legislation, from Japan's Building Standards Act, Fire Service Act and Energy Conservation Act to ordinances and official notifications that vary by region. Early in a project, while conditions are still fluid, designers must identify all relevant legislation, grasp the issues that will shape the design approach, and organise the points to confirm ahead of legal review.

At Obayashi, the Architectural Design Legal Department handles designers' consultations and reviews design content. In the early stages of design, the applicable legislation is wide-ranging, so identifying and organising the issues often takes time. In such cases, having designers and the Architectural Design Legal Department share those issues and think them through together from an early stage leads to smoother design and helps assure quality.

This initiative places an AI agent between designers' initial research and the department's specialist review. Designers organise the points to confirm through dialogue with the agent, while the department concentrates on issues requiring expert judgement. The aim: extend legal checks from discrete “points” at design milestones into a continuous “line” of support as the design progresses.

The pilot is staged. The Architectural Design Legal Department first verified the agent's accuracy and how best to use it; designers are now using it on several live design projects. In the verification phase, the time each person spent on statutory research and organising requirements fell from an average of 4.3 hours a week to 1.4 hours, a saving of 2.9 hours a week (*1).

Through this initiative, the partners aim to shorten statutory research time and give designers greater confidence, to make collaboration smoother by having designers and the Architectural Design Legal Department share the issues as work progresses, and to build and share knowledge within the organisation.

An AI agent for statutory and local ordinance research

Tektome is an agentic intelligence platform that accumulates a company's own expertise and applies it through multiple construction-specific AI agents working together by task, among them Regulations Research and Requirements Management. It needs no bespoke development, runs on natural-language instructions, and adapts to a company's work with use.

At Obayashi, the Regulations Research agent draws on the knowledge accumulated on the Tektome platform, from statutory information such as the Building Standards Act and related ordinances to Obayashi's own checking criteria and verification methods, letting designers check legislation continuously from the earliest design stages.

Designers use the agent in two ways: as a “sounding board”, raising questions as they arise and organising the legislation and issues to confirm; and as a “self-check”, verifying nothing has been overlooked before legal review. This streamlines research, sharpens issue framing ahead of review, and supports design quality.

The agent answers with a conclusion first, then cites the statutory provisions behind it, so designers can verify the original text themselves.
Where an issue cannot be settled by the agent alone, it flags the point as “requiring confirmation” rather than asserting an answer; final judgement rests with people. Information can be output as tables and diagrams, supporting designers' understanding, internal sharing and consensus-building.

Comments from designers using Tektome

“On my own, I can only search within what I already know. Tektome picks up things beyond my own knowledge, which is reassuring. Our team also uses it to compare conditions when a building's use changes, and organising everything under the same conditions is a great help.” (translated from Japanese) - Suzuki, Architectural Design Department, Architectural Design & Engineering Division

“Because it can research many pieces of legislation at once, it cuts research time significantly, and I can put that time back into design. Answers come with sources, so I can verify them myself and use them in internal documents. Organising legislation and issues before consulting the Architectural Design Legal Department should also make those discussions more efficient.” (translated from Japanese) - Kikuchi, Architectural Design Department, Architectural Design & Engineering Division

Looking ahead

Tektome's goal is for people and AI to work together, turning the knowledge accumulated within a company into strength for the organisation as a whole.
When something is unclear, people turn first to the AI agent to organise the information and issues, then make the final judgement themselves. Tektome envisages this kind of collaboration taking root naturally across design and construction work, raising the quality of construction projects and spreading the value it creates to people and society.

Together with Obayashi, Tektome will continue to verify the pilot's effectiveness and explore future applications. Working closely with its clients, Tektome is committed to taking AI in construction beyond concept into forms that deliver lasting value on the ground.
*1 Obayashi Corporation press release (content in Japanese).


About Tektome
Tektome is an AI company serving the AEC industry with its Multi Intelligence Platform where human expertise, organisational knowledge and specialist AI agents work together, giving teams the right intelligence at the right time. Purpose-built agents read BIM models, drawings and documents in their native formats, deliver source-cited reviews, and turn past projects into searchable knowledge. Its intelligence compounds with use; final judgement rests with people.

Francis Kolms
Tektome
+81 7084321704
email us here