Embracer Group on AI: 'We don't want to replace people with artificial intelligence'

Embracer Group reveals plans to incorporate artificial intelligence tools to develop new games, but the publisher doesn't want the technology to actually replace its workers.

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With thousands of layoffs wracking the video games industry, AI is a hot-button topic. The tech has been criticized because its automation processes could put even more people out of work at a time when jobs are already scarce. While pretty much every games publisher plans to utilize AI in some way--lest they miss out on the AI gold rush and somehow get farther behind competitors--these companies are trying to find ways to do so in a more acceptable way.

That's the case with Embracer Group, the once-decentralized group that itself had laid off over 1,300 people in the last year. Embracer wants to use AI to help accelerate game dev, but not at the cost of human capital. At least that's what the company says in its recent year-end report.

"We do not want to replace people with AI, we want to empower them. This is the core of our human-centric approach to leveraging the potential with AI," said Embracer's head of privacy and AI governance Tomas Hedman.

So how will AI be used? It sounds like in the typical ways--things like script or dialog writing could be AI-enhanced. Hedman also says that devs could use it to generate images, e.g. generative AI.

"As AI models become more powerful, we can leverage their capacity also in the creative process, for example, by identifying inconsistencies in scripts and storytelling. There will be tremendous benefits for our creative teams regarding scriptwriting, image creation, idea generation, quality control, and more.

"And, as models become more human-like, the interaction between players and AI-supported functions will be much more dynamic. If in a game scenario you bargain, AI can remember this the next time. That makes the whole gaming experience much more interesting and lifelike."

So far we haven't seen a lot of concrete examples of how AI will be used in games development, at least with more in-depth demos and other tech. Publishers are mostly talking about AI, not showing their hands, but the iteration is going on behind the scenes at an unknown pace.