- The company is looking to pioneer a new category of games “that doesn’t yet exist”
- EA CEO Andrew Wilson said AI “is not merely a buzzword for us – it’s at the very core of our business”
Get Industry News In Your Inbox…
Sign Up Today
EA has given a sneak preview of an early-stage mobile experiment leveraging AI, codenamed Project Air.
Shown off during the publisher’s first Investor Day since 2016, the experimental product looks to harness AI’s potential to empower characters while aiming to demonstrate the foundations of a new category of games “that doesn’t yet exist”.
“Seeds for the future”
EA chief strategy officer Mihir Vaidya took to the stage to give an early look at Project Air, though noted it should be viewed as the “equivalent to early YouTube videos”, not representative of EA’s immediate roadmap.
“We are very intentionally planting the seeds for the future.”
Mihir Vaidya
“The experiences stemming from these experiments are not intended to replace triple-A games but instead unlock new and adjacent categories that add, as opposed to take away, from the existing gaming market,” he explained.
“We are very intentionally planting the seeds for the future.”
Within the short demonstration, Project Air was shown to be a mobile platform “kind of like a game” where players create AI characters with their friends, interact with them and share them with the world.
In the scenarios shown, players came together to secure a business deal with an AI investor, convince an AI detective of their innocence, and even convince a skater to dye his hair.
The gameplay was built around limitless text inputs as opposed to a pre-determined list of responses, which led the AI to respond in case-specific ways as they either agreed with or refuted a player’s arguments.
This would, in theory, result in unlimited replayability, while users creating new AI characters would add to the library of available scenarios to interact with, unlocking “totally new types of interactive experiences”.
“Experimental new products anchored on transformative new technology, they may feel rudimentary at the start, but they can evolve into so much more,” said Vaidya. “Over time, they can unlock new and adjacent categories that ultimately expand the market as opposed to cannibalise it.”
AI “the very core of our business”
He compared the emergence of this AI technology to cat videos, makeup tutorials and reaction videos in the 2000s, dismissed by critics as niche and amateur at the time but coming to drive “trillions of hours of viewership”.
“In this context, our focus should be less on outputs such as visual fidelity and depth of experience, and more on the inputs such as the underlying technology and the user motivation and engagement modalities unlocked by the technology,” he added.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson also assured investors that AI “is not merely a buzzword for us – it’s at the very core of our business”.
The tech forms part of EA’s mission to surpass one billion global players, which the company hopes to reach in the next five years.
