Artificial intelligence has affected almost every area of technology. From data analysis to art programs, it's hard to find a tech-based industry that hasn't been affected by AI in some way. Video games are no different, and while it hasn't seen AI developments as fast as some areas, we're still seeing some exciting developments that can change gaming forever.

Of course, developers are already using general AI tools to help produce content for their games, such as generating art, writing scripts, and getting inspiration on what to do next. But there are some ways that AI has revolutionized gaming and achieved things that are either impossible or very tedious for a human to do.

3 AI can create NPCs that respond to your words

Making dialogue that responds to your exact thoughts

Making a game where the main character says exactly what the player wants to say can be very tough. You can only give the player a selection of choices when progressing the story, and even then, some players will want to take the conversation in a different direction or ask something the developer didn't think about. And because everything runs on a strict script, there's no room for the player to talk to the NPCs as they want.

However, an AI LLM can fix this. Much like how you can talk to a chatbot like ChatGPT, a developer can hook up an NPC to an AI and have it handle your responses. That way, you can ask the character whatever questions you like, and the AI can analyze the character it has been given to roleplay and respond accordingly. Best of all, once AI PCs take off, you won't need an internet connection to communicate with an external AI model; it can all be processed on your hardware.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this technology in action is Suck Up!, a game where you play as a vampire. Playing off the folklore that a vampire can only enter a house once someone invites them in, you explore a neighborhood trying to convince each resident to let you step over their threshold. Each resident has their own quirks and personalities, so you need to pair your dialogue with a relevant costume to stand the best chance of sneaking in.

In the game, each resident is powered by an AI that roleplays the person they're told to act as. During the conversation phase, you can say whatever you want your vampire to say through your microphone. The game will parse what you said, then hand it over to the AI in charge of character dialog. The game will then judge if what you said would convince the character to let you in or if they'll slam the door in your face instead.

There's also Inworld Origins, which feels more like a tech demo than a fully-fledged game. Despite this, there's still some potential; the game sets up a mystery and allows the AI to decide who did what and when. You question AI-powered NPCs to figure out who did the crime, and the plot can change between each playthrough. Unlike Suck Up!, Inworld Origins also uses voice cloning technology, so the characters can read out the lines the AI gives them.

2 AI can help lip-sync character's lines

Removing a tedious part of animation

While there are already AI-powered games on the market right now, there are still some technologies currently in development. One of them is Audio2Face, which Nvidia announced as part of its push to introduce AI into game development. Audio2Face uses AI to automatically match a character's mouth movements to their dialogue, removing the need for an animator to do the lip-syncing themselves. Nividia discusses in its blog post that this technology will make localization a lot easier, as developers don't need to tweak the lip sync for each language. Instead, they can use Audio2Face to process the animation for them.

While Nvidia didn't explicitly state it in their post, there's a good chance that you'll find Audio2Face working alongside AI-generated dialogue. After all, if NPCs are generating their dialogue in real-time, they're going to need a lip-syncing tech that can accurately animate the mouth on the fly.

1 AI can turn 2D photos into 3D objects

Bringing photos into the game world

Another recently-announced technology is Stability AI's 2D-to-3D converter. The idea behind this AI tool is that you can upload a 2D photo of an object and it will do its best to produce a 3D model of the item. Most of the magic comes from the AI predicting what's on the other side of the object, and it's surprisingly good at it.

Of course, this has the potential for developers to quickly add 3D models into their games; they can just take a photo of the item they want to import and add it in. However, there's also the potential of designing a game where someone can upload images of stuff around their house which then gets added into the game.

AI is making a splash in the videogame industry

Whether you look at games released now or those planned for the future, there's a good chance you'll see AI used somewhere. And with AI getting better every day, we'll likely see more and more examples of generative content added to our games. And given that this is just the start, it's hard to imagine what games will look like a few years down the pipeline.