UPWARD Files Patent for Elastic Geofence AI, a New Technology for Highly Accurate Stay Detection

(Location: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; hereinafter "UPWARD") announces that it has developed and applied for a patent for its proprietary technology "Elastic Geofence AI" to further improve the accuracy of stay detection in outside sales activities.

This technology, which will be incorporated in the sales support mobile app "UPWARD," provides a more comfortable UX (user experience) by allowing AI to learn geospatial information around the place of stay and the location information where the sales representative has been active, and optimize stay detection on an individual basis.

 New Technology Overview 

UPWARD has previously provided technology that automatically log stays by setting up a geo-fence (a virtual geographic boundary) around a visit and detecting the entry and exit of the customer. With this technology, sales representatives can easily report their activities from their mobile devices based on the automatically detected location information without having to search for customers. By deploying the geo-fence only when movement is detected and activating app only when a stay is determined, the system minimizes terminal battery consumption and communication volume, enabling both ease of use at the sales site and reduced load on the terminal.

However, with conventional techniques, where the center and radius of the geofence were fixed, there were situations where manual modifications were required depending on the actual site area, density, and visitation pattern.

In large facilities, even if you are actually staying at the facility, you will not be detected.
・In areas with dense facilities, such as urban areas, detection will overlap. 

Elastic Geofence AI was newly developed to eliminate these minute detection gaps and duplications and further improve UX.

With this technology, AI learns the location history and geospatial information of user activities to optimize the center and size of the geofence for each user. As the name "Elastic" suggests, the detection range can be freely optimized according to the sales style and visiting patterns of the person in charge.

This enables more accurate and automatic log activity information such as "when, where, and how long they stayed," in line with actual conditions. This system minimizes the data entry workload on site when creating daily reports, while enabling the daily customer touchpoint to be accumulated as "usable data".

More information about this technology can be found in the following articles:
https://zenn.dev/upward_nakata/articles/04a46b5b71cc9d

Akihiro Kadohata, Executive Officer, CTO Comments 

The patented technology applied for this time is expected to dramatically improve the accuracy of geospatial stay detection in the XY axis. By combining geospatial information and AI, we aim to achieve the world's highest level of stay detection accuracy. 

In the future, we intend to actively invest in indoor positioning technology that can identify differences between floors and rooms within a building to achieve even higher accuracy. Through these efforts, we aim to make AI agents of field sales activities.

Patent Application Summary

Patent application number: JP-A2025-113882
Filing date: July 4, 2025
Title of invention: Information processing apparatus, information processing method, program, and information processing system

UPWARD" INNOVATES THE LAST MILE IN THE FIELD 

UPWARD is an AI-based sales support service specialized for outside sales and door-to-door sales. It provides various AI functions specialized for outbound sales, log automatic logcustomer touchpoint using our patented "advanced geo-fencing technology". UPWARD is used by more than 400 companies, including Kubota Corporation and Shizuoka Bank, whose main sales channel is face-to-face contact with customers, and is utilized as a next-generation sales digital transformation platform.
UPWARD" introduction material: https://upward.jp/downloads/allservicematerials/