Gaming Giant Ubisoft Shows How Generative AI Improves NPCs

Gaming giant Ubisoft has released a preview of its latest AI game prototype, which the company says will give non-player characters (NPCs) incredible abilities. The developer's new NEO NPCs were unveiled at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Although Ubisoft says there's still a long way to go before its own NEO NPCs are used in games, they'll improve how players interact with non-playable characters (NPCs), providing richer experiences and boosting the adoption and development of artificial intelligence in games.

In the GDC demo, players interacted with the NEO NPC AI, which Ubisoft said displayed “unprecedented cognitive and interactive capabilities,” including emotions, memory, situational awareness, and decision-making.

Ubisoft is the studio behind Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry, and the company says these developments use voice-to-chat technology. Using generative AI, NPCs can share ideas, ask questions, and help players plan future actions.

“I used a character's backstory, their hopes and dreams, the experiences that shape their personality, and all that information to nurture myself,” Ubisoft narrative director Virginie Mosser said in a statement. “It's very different, but for the first time in my life, I can talk to a character I've created – I've dreamed about it since I was a child.

Ubisoft NEO NPCs were created in collaboration with chip maker Nvidia and Inworld AI. The company says it uses Nvidia's Audio2Face technology, which is part of the ACE suite, to create accurate facial expressions.

Last summer, Silicon Valley-based Inworld AI raised $50 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Stanford University, Samsung Next and strategic investors Microsoft's M12 Fund, Eric Schmidt's First Spark Ventures and LG Technology Ventures also participated.

In addition to interactive dialogue, Ubisoft says that Inworld AI technology will allow Ubisoft's writers to develop detailed background, knowledge and dialogue for each NPC.

“The way we've worked on this project has always been with our players and our developers,” said Guillem Picard, Ubisoft's senior vice president of product technology, in a statement. “We know that developers and their creativity must still drive our projects – creative AI is only valuable if it's valuable to them.”

Ubisoft did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

Following the official launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Midjourney last year, game studios have looked for ways to use the technology. Studios joining Ubisoft in the AI ​​race include Blizzard Entertainment, Square Enix and Microsoft.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Ubisoft announced that the game studio helped tech giant Nvidia develop more responsive and interactive characters using NVIDIA's growing suite of generative AI technology.

“Generative AI brings unprecedented creative possibilities to our teams and players,” Pickard said in a separate statement. “It's only when they realize the value for them that we start to see the real potential to transform games and gameplay.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.