AI creates a more immersive and interactive experience for players.
gettySince its foundation, the gaming industry has been a leader in technological innovation, pushing forward and embracing or creating new technologies.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been part of gaming since the early days of arcade games. It has evolved from simple decision-making processes in games like Galaga to complex systems that power today’s large and immersive gaming worlds. The way we use AI today in game development gives us a peek into the future of this emerging technology.
How Today’s Games Use AI
Today, AI is not just an add-on but a key part of game development. It creates a more immersive and interactive experience for players. Developers use this technology to breathe life into non-playable characters (NPCs), making them seem real and encouraging interaction within the game.
Ubisoft, for example, uses AI to generate real-time text responses between players and NPCs. Yet, this only represents a small fraction of what AI can do with NPCs. With the way that AI is developing today, there may soon come a day when AI programs are playing the game just like their human companions.
But AI does more than improve dialogue. It can quickly create large digital environments, handle complex data, and simulate realistic environmental effects. This significantly changes the gaming experience.
These expansive digital realms rely on AI to manage vast amounts of data, coordinate interactions between players, and simulate ecosystems teeming with NPCs. This enables video games to provide a sense of realism and depth that would be very difficult without AI’s computational power and data management capabilities.
What AI Games Learn From Customers
AI’s potential goes beyond gaming. Similar to how Amazon and Netflix use customer data to make recommendations, gaming AI uses player behavior to inform game development and marketing strategies. This, in turn, opens new opportunities for growth. Additionally, AI can use this data to provide business leaders with a map of their organization’s issues and opportunities while guiding them to sustainable solutions that push their business forward.
A recent study from IDC reports returns of $3.50 on every $1 invested into new AI technology. These kinds of advances illustrate the gaming industry’s penchant for adopting the latest technology to see how it can improve their player’s experience. Indeed, by examining the new technology adopted by the gaming industry, business leaders from across different industries open a window into the future.
We can observe how people play with these new technologies in their games to see what’s on the horizon.
Toward an AI-Native Future
Businesses that proactively adopt industry-changing innovations gain a significant edge over their competitors. Twenty years ago, the digital transformation ushered in major changes across global industries. Today, however, the company that invests in AI will reap the benefits of this industry disruption.
The rise of AI-native gaming companies is anticipated to be a major shift. It’s leading to a new era of virtual collaboration worldwide. These companies are recognized for their advanced technology and ability to analyze data. This allows game developers and publishers to optimize the creation and operation of games in ways we couldn’t imagine before.
While many might look to Silicon Valley’s largest tech giants for answers about AI, those tech giants do not hold a monopoly on this emerging machine learning technology. As the gaming industry uses AI more and more, it’s paving the way with innovative structures and creative processes that can be applied to other sectors. The lessons we learn from creating, developing, and operating AI-driven platforms will be useful across industries.
In a world that’s increasingly defined by AI, the gaming industry’s journey with this technology is a great example. It not only improves the gaming experience but also shows how other industries might use AI to improve human capabilities and experiences.
As we move towards a future dominated by AI, the gaming industry’s path acts as a guide and a driving force, pushing forward the joint evolution of society and technology.
