Microsoft, the giant behind the Xbox gaming platform, has announced a multi-year partnership with Inworld AI. The latter is a leading company in artificial intelligence and virtual reality and the partnership aims to bring realistic and interactive AI characters to Xbox games.
It is touted to enhance the gaming experience and immersion for Xbox players, as well as create new possibilities for game developers. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionising accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers”, said Haiyan Zhang, General Manager of Gaming AI, Xbox.
The partnership with Xbox will allow Inworld AI to bring its AI characters to the gaming industry, where they can be used as NPCs (non-player characters), companions, or even protagonists in various genres of games.
For players, it would potentially allow them to chat and interact with the NPCs and in turn, their replies would be completely unique each time along with a unique voice as well. This was just a single instance as to where the tech from Inworld AI could be put to use.
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Gaming Developers would get access to a complete toolset which would include:
- An AI design copilot that assists and empowers game designers to explore more creative ideas, turning prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and more.
- An AI character runtime engine that can be integrated into the game client, enabling entirely new narratives with dynamically-generated stories, quests, and dialogue for players to experience.
“We want to help make it easier for developers to realize their visions, try new things, push the boundaries of gaming today and experiment to improve gameplay, player connection and more. We will collaborate and innovate with game creators inside Xbox studios as well as third-party studios as we develop the tools that meet their needs and inspire new possibilities for future games”, said Zhang.
These tools are being offered on an optional basis and aren’t necessary to use by the developers. It is aimed at making their work easier, as they will be be able to use Inworld AI’s platform and tools to create and customise their own AI characters, without the need for extensive coding or animation skills.