During the EA Investor Day, which also saw the confirmation of the third installment in the Star Wars Jedi series, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson outlined the core importance of generative AI for the company's future. Following up on his previous statement that generative AI will allow bigger and more immersive worlds, Wilson explained how EA is using this technology for its upcoming projects as part of its bid to outpace market growth through 2027 and double the audience to over a billion users.
AI in its different forms has always been central to this creative journey. We all remember playing against the AI, and it has evolved into today's innovations in generative AI. This remarkable technology is not merely a buzzword for us; it's the very core of our business. Beyond writing or coding AI to ensure the believability of our characters, we have always used forms of machine learning and AI across our games and processes. Right now, we have over 100 active novel AI projects across three strategic categories: efficiency, expansion, and transformation.
Let me first talk about efficiency. This does not just mean cost savings today. Efficiency is doing what we do today faster, cheaper, and at a higher quality. That means driving more iterations, more testing and high quality content for our communities. It means removing obstacles for our game developers. It means culturalizing content across geographies so they can focus on finding more fun for more players around the world. The lowering of these friction points leads to deeper gameplay experiences.
Expansion is about giving our creative teams an exponentially bigger canvas upon which to create and richer colors so they might paint more brilliant worlds. It's about our incredible teams creating characters with more depth and intelligence, telling stories that are more personal and nuanced, and bringing more authenticity and deeper immersion. For years, we at EA have talked about our games delivering experiences that are always new and different. We predict that with generative AI, we will truly be able to fulfill this promise for billions of people and billions of hours.
Transformation is about looking much farther into the future and finding new ways to play, watch, create, and connect that aren't imagined today. We believe AI will greatly expand and transform the entertainment experience for user generated content. It will accelerate how innovators and creators in entertainment are building and delivering experiences rooted in self-expression, content creation, curation, and instant gratification, the kind of entertainment that today's players and fans deeply crave.
Bold words indeed from the EA CEO, although Electronic Arts is not at all the only big company to believe in generative AI's potential to disrupt the gaming industry. Microsoft, for instance, partnered with Inworld AI to create a multiplatform AI-powered toolset for game developers. Ubisoft also showed off an interesting demo at GDC 2024 powered by Inworld AI tech.
Electronic Arts appears to be developing an in-house solution rather than relying on a third party. Either way, we might be looking at an influx of games featuring some sort of generative AI implementation in the next few years.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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