Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has stated generative AI has been integrated across the entire company, expressing his belief that generative AI is as big a “revolution” for video games as the shift from 2D to 3D.
Guillemot (via Game File) spent a short but explosive minute near the start of a recent earnings call to speak on generative AI in particular, which appears to be taking a larger role in Ubisoft’s works moving forward.
Guillemot stated: “We are making great strides in applying Gen AI to high-value use cases that bring tangible benefits to our players and teams…It’s as big [of] a revolution for our industry as the shift to 3D. And we have everything to lead on this front.”
Guillemot continued: “On the player experience side, we are continuing to make progress on groundbreaking player-facing generative AI applications, building on our neo NPC announcements in 2024. We have already advanced from prototyping to player reality, and we are looking forward to sharing more before the end of the year.”
Finally, Guillemot stated Ubisoft’s embrace of AI goes beyond dedicated AI projects, and that AI-use has already been integrated into every development team across all of Ubisoft’s offices. He explained: “On the production side, we now have teams in all our studios and offices embracing this new technology and constantly exploring new use cases in programming, art and overall game quality.”
So far the publicly shown results of Ubisoft’s venture into the wild world of generative AI resulted in a prototype version of the aforementioned Neo NPCs, which Eurogamer’s own Chris Tapsell experienced firsthand. He described the tech as “a tool that’s been built first – on the notion that if we build it, someone clever will surely come along and make use of it. There’s an argument to say that’s somewhat back-to-front: the best tools are solutions to problems those clever people already have.” Perhaps we’ll see how this tech is actually used soon.
Guillemot previously stated that generative AI was “just another technology to be tested”, but fast forward to this current era of AI bullishness, it appears he’s gripped this AI tech with both hands. Even so, Ubisoft recently apologised to Anno 117: Pax Romana players for the “accidental” inclusion of an AI loading screen in the release version of that game. Perhaps the AI-focused Ubisoft has some hurdles to overcome as it adopts this new technology.
This earnings call came shortly after the cessation of trading for Ubisoft, which sent the entire industry into mass speculation. Ubisoft confirmed that this was due to an issue with new auditors, despite broad speculation of a grander acquisition.
