Phil Spencer says what AI is being used for at Xbox amid Halo accusations

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has responded to a question about AI being used in the development of titles under the Xbox banner.

2

Spencer was on a panel with Double Fine Studio Head Tim Schafer at the Paley International Council Summit in Palo Alto, where he was asked about the involvement of AI at Xbox. Spencer confirmed that the new technology is in use at the publisher, but not in the way that you may think. According to Spencer, Xbox "mostly" uses AI for security purposes, specifically for moderating voice and text chat on Xbox Live, as the service has grown too large for humans to feasibly moderate.

The Xbox CEO did touch on the use of AI in game development, saying there isn't a "top-down mandate" that development studios operating under the Xbox banner must use AI throughout the creation of their game. Recent reports claimed the new Halo game is being developed with AI, which has also been refuted by insiders.

Spencer said that he has found creative teams will use any tools that make their job easier, and that any enforcement of tools "is not a path to success". Keeping to the topic of AI, but moving away from it being used creatively, Spencer said the tool could be used for discovery, specifically when a gamer wants to find a new game to play.

"On the creative side, I really leave it up to the teams," he said. "I have found that creative teams will use tools that make their job easier when it makes their job easier, and any top-down mandate that 'Thou must use a certain tool'...is not really a path to success. I look at the teams, and we make tools available, and I kind of let it organically percolate."

"An area that you've talked about that's interesting is discovery. How do I find the next thing that I might love? In that scenario where we are looking at some of the AI tools - it's not in practice today - but is there a way for us to use discovery based on things that you've done in the past to surface the next thing that you might not know about that might be interesting to you?"

"On the production side, which I think is where a lot of people go...we don't have any goals in our model for that to happen. I think more about the pace of creativity, maybe the number of things we can try and take risks on before we decide on our next opportunity. But our AI use today is much more operational than it is in the creative space."