S/ Katayama Keiko, Reporter/ This rice is made with AI. This is made without AI. The rice made without AI seems to have a slight smell of rice bran left.

Panasonic announced a new rice cooker that uses AI to adjust the heat and pressure based on data from a sensor inside that measures the temperature and water content.

The rice cooker is made to adjust for new crop rice that has a higher water content, dehydrated older rice, and harder rice made overseas.

Panasonic said the rice cooker is able to bring out eight percent more of the rice’s natural sweetness.

Manufacturers are seeing a higher demand for rice cookers that cook old or foreign rice well while the domestic rice shortage and increase in rice prices continues.

According to the Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association, the shipment of rice cookers has increased in both volume and price for three consecutive months, especially in high tech and high value units.