Canadian startup Artificial Agency recently completed $16 million in financing and officially launched its AI behavior engine. The company, founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is committed to revolutionizing the NPC experience in video games through AI technology to make it more dynamic and realistic. The engine they developed no longer relies on traditional decision trees and pre-written scripts, but instead gives NPCs their own motivations, rules and goals, thereby achieving more complex and natural interactions and giving players a more immersive gaming experience. This will change the way game developers interact with NPCs, making them more like a stage manager rather than a programmer.
Imagine you are playing a video game where NPCs (non-player characters) can not only talk to you, but also understand your needs and even complete complex tasks without your explicit instructions. This isn’t science fiction, this is what Canadian startup Artificial Agency is doing.
A group of former Google DeepMind researchers have created an AI behavioral engine designed to transform traditional video games into a more dynamic experience by improving NPC behavior and interaction with players.
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Artificial Agency just raised $16 million in funding and emerged from stealth mode. They believe their behavioral engine will set them apart from the many companies using AI to generate more realistic NPCs.
Traditionally, NPCs are guided through decision trees and pre-written scripts, which often limit the number of outcomes players can experience. For example, most NPCs in the game respond to player actions with only a few repetitive lines of dialogue, which often seems unrealistic and boring.
Artificial Agency's behavioral engine abandons this framework, changing the game developer's role to more like a stage manager. The engine requires developers to give each NPC a set of motivations, rules and goals, which will determine how the NPC responds to players. This technology can be integrated into existing video games or serve as the basis for entirely new titles.
The Edmonton, Alberta-based startup is entering an increasingly crowded field. Competitors include the likes of Inworld and Nvidia, which have been working on AI-driven NPCs for some time.
Artificial Agency believes that integrating AI-generated NPCs into video game design is the way forward. "The conversations we often have with these studios are not about if to adopt, but when to adopt," co-founder and CEO Brian Tanner told TechCrunch. "The kind of dynamic interaction and dynamic response our system allows will become a standard in the gaming industry in the coming years."
Artificial Agency recently raised $12 million in a seed round co-led by Radical Ventures and Toyota Ventures. It previously raised $4 million in undisclosed pre-seed funding from Radical Ventures, bringing total funding to $16 million.
Tanner estimates that a roughly five-minute demo of AI inference costs $1, but noted that a year ago this would have cost $100. Artificial Agency expects costs to continue falling thanks to improvements in GPU efficiency and optimization of AI models. Currently, the startup uses open source models, including Meta’s Llama3.
Mulet said his venture capital firm believes game studios are willing to pay licensing fees for Artificial Agency's technology, but once deployed it could result in players paying monthly fees.
"The cost of inference associated with running these systems means it has to be some kind of high-level functionality," Mulet said. "As a gamer, would you pay $2.99 or $12.99 a month? It's too early to say."
Artificial Agency's AI behavioral engine is expected to revolutionize the gaming experience and push the gaming industry into a new era of more immersion and interactivity. While the cost and business model remain to be seen, this technology undoubtedly has huge potential and deserves industry attention.