{"id":203991,"date":"2025-12-25T23:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T23:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/203991\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T23:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T23:28:09","slug":"ai-world-models-promise-to-reshape-190bn-video-games-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/203991\/","title":{"rendered":"AI \u2018world models\u2019 promise to reshape $190bn video games industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

The global video games industry is set to be disrupted by the advent of artificial intelligence models that generate interactive 3D environments. <\/p>\n

Google DeepMind and Fei-Fei Li\u2019s $1bn start-up World Labs are among the leading AI groups arguing that so-called \u201cworld models\u201d \u2014 systems designed to navigate and recreate the physical world \u2014 could reshape the multibillion-dollar gaming sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreating software and games in particular is changing a lot, and I expect it to change, maybe entirely, over the next few years,\u201d said Shlomi Fruchter, co-lead of Genie 3, DeepMind\u2019s world model.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will go and empower creators and developers to build things faster, better and in ways that weren\u2019t done before\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. I don\u2019t think it [will] replace the existing experience [but we will see] more types of experiences that are not available today.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI companies such as Elon Musk\u2019s xAI and Nvidia are also seeking to embed world models into robots and autonomous vehicles. But more immediate gains could emerge through the gaming sector, which is expected to generate almost $190bn in revenues this year according to industry research group Newzoo.<\/p>\n

Existing generative AI tools are already being used to create visual assets for games, such as unique landscapes, and characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Game Gears, part of the GDEV holding, has leveraged AI technology during the development of \u2018Aliens vs Zombies: Invasion\u2019 \u00a9 Game Gears<\/p>\n

In May, Epic Games and Disney introduced an AI-powered Darth Vader \u2014 a version of the Star Wars character built with Google and ElevenLabs \u2014 as an interactive non-player character in Fortnite. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Alexander Vaschenko, chief executive of Game Gears, says AI has quadrupled the speed of developing titles such as the studio\u2019s Aliens vs Zombies: Invasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on my professional experience, I firmly believe that both the video game and film industries will soon be unable to function without AI,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Logos<\/a><\/p>\n

AI companies are betting that the release of new and more powerful world models \u2014 which generate 3D, interactive environments from text prompts \u2014 will further accelerate AI adoption within games companies.<\/p>\n

World Labs, founded by the AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li<\/a>, launched a world model called Marble last month. Another AI group, Runway, which works with games studios, launched its first world model in December.
Li said the technology will affect game engines such as Unity and Epic\u2019s Unreal. \u201cThis is all up for disruption,\u201d she added. \u201cSimulation gaming engines are due for improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n

In future, AI experts said players will be able to create new gaming worlds themselves, while developers can reduce the need for expensive software or specialised skills to generate content.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow a gamer in front of this world model can put themselves into a virtual world,\u201d said Eric Xing, president of the Mohamed bin Zayed University for Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi. \u201cThat makes the game industry very different from today, because producing a personalised game is now a straightforward process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics argue that increased use of AI will lead to developers and artists being replaced, with game visuals being overwhelmed by \u201cslop\u201d or low-quality AI-generated material.<\/p>\n

Six European video games unions condemned the growing use of AI in their industry this month, saying the tools\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009were \u201cbeing forced upon us, even though they degrade our working conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Optimists, however, say it may alleviate costs, increase creativity, and avoid burnout among developer staff. That would be a boon in an industry where leading games \u2014 known as triple-A titles \u2014 can take several years and cost more than $1bn to develop.<\/p>\n

DeepMind\u2019s Alexandre Moufarek, formerly an associate producer at French games maker Ubisoft, said he hoped that world models would help give developers space to \u201cfind the fun\u201d and \u201ctry new ideas and take risks again\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften, that\u2019s the time that\u2019s missing at the end of the production. Christmas is coming, and you need to release the game, and you just don\u2019t have time to polish the things that you wanted [or] debug things correctly,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we put those models in the hands of creatives, I\u2019m sure we are going to discover new ways of working that we haven\u2019t even anticipated yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-203991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}