Ubisoft let me actually speak with its new AI-powered video game NPCs

Passion. You can feel it, can't you?" begins Bloom, an AI NPC from Ubisoft in collab with InWorld, and Nvidia. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

For the past three months, ever since I spoke to the AI NPCs in Nvidia's cyberpunk ramen shop, I've been wondering: Which game developer will take a flying leap on this controversial and intriguing tech? If you said Ubisoft," the company that's always raising its hand to play with VR, NFTs, interactive TV shows, secondary screens and more, you'd be half right.

Last night, I played three prototype segments of an experimental Ubisoft demo featuring the company's just-announced Neo NPCs" - one of whom tried to convince me to join the resistance against powerful megacorps by playing on my emotions. Another walked me through an infiltration plan on a whiteboard, letting me convince" her that we should knock out the lights or hack the...

Continue reading...