⚡️ Game On

Happy Friday. Bain & Company foresees a significant shift in video game development, with AI poised to manage more than half of game development within 5 to 10 years. Let's dive in.

Today’s Highlights:

• Anthropic and BCG partner to provide AI solutions

• Microsoft open-sources protein-creating AI, EvoDiff

• OpenAI announces first EU office in Dublin

DEEP DIVE

Revolutionizing Game Development

Generative AI in video game development is on the rise, says Bain & Company, and it's set to take a whopping 50% share of the process in the next five to ten years—a seismic shift from its less than 5% contribution currently.

This projection is courtesy of a survey asking 25 gaming executives worldwide about how generative AI is expected to affect the industry. The general consensus? It will boost game quality and speed up development. But only 20% reckon it'll lead to lower development costs.

Interestingly, around 60% believe AI won't have a significant effect on their talent model or alleviate the industry’s critical talent shortage.

How will the game development landscape change?

• GenAI is most likely to be used more in the production stage, acting in areas like story generation, non-playable characters (NPCs), game assets, live operations, and user-generated content.

• It's also anticipated to alleviate the burden on game developers, freeing them up to focus on the creative storytelling aspect of game development.

GenAI comes with its challenges though: The study highlights system integration as the main hurdle. And then there are data training, technical capabilities, regulatory and legal oversight, and implementation costs—not to forget the critical question of IP ownership.

Despite these challenges, the consensus is that GenAI will fundamentally shape game development, perhaps even more so than technologies like virtual reality (VR) and cloud gaming have done in the past. Navigating this nascent and complex landscape will require a disciplined, thoughtful, player-driven approach while making strategic partnerships to leverage niche capabilities.

Keep reading here.

PUNCHLINES

Databricks Defies Doubts: Despite late-stage gloom, Databricks raises $500M more—increasing valuation to a whopping $43B.

ARM'd For Success: SoftBank's AI chip designer Arm soars 25% in its second IPO, netting a $65B valuation.

Helsing Takes The Helm: Defense AI startup Helsing secures $223M in Series B, breaking the record for European AI.

Gemini Rising: Intending to compete with GPT-4, Google nears the release of its conversational AI, Gemini.

TLDR

Anthropic and BCG team up to deliver AI solutions: AI startup Anthropic collaborates with Boston Consulting Group to offer BCG clients access to its AI technology. The partnership aims to promote innovation and uplift productivity, including applications like document synthesis, fraud detection, and demand forecasting.

Microsoft open-sources protein-creating AI, EvoDiff: Microsoft has open-sourced a novel AI framework, EvoDiff, that can generate proteins directly from sequences, bypassing the need for structural information. Powered by a 640-million parameter model, EvoDiff could propel enzyme creation for treatments, drug delivery, and industrial chemical reactions. It will undergo more scaling work and lab tests to validate generated proteins before commercial use.

OpenAI announces its first EU office: OpenAI is set to open its first EU office in Dublin, Ireland. The company is also hiring for nine strategic roles to strengthen its commitment to privacy. This move prepares the company for the upcoming regulation-focused EU AI Act and increasing EU scrutiny of the AI sector.

AI surpasses humans in creativity test: AI chatbots, including GPT-4, ChatGPT, and Copy.ai score higher on average than humans in the Alternate Uses Task, a test to gauge creative abilities; though top human scores were higher. Though not proving artificial creativity, the results could provide insight into creative task approaches.

AI-powered food recommendations gain popularity: A recent survey reveals that 58% of consumers have received AI-generated food recommendations from food delivery services. Companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash are testing AI chatbots to improve ordering experiences, while Instacart utilizes AI for its new feature 'Ask Instacart' that offers diverse food suggestions and cooking advice.

TRENDING TOOLS

🕸️ Instagraph: Convert text or URL into an informative knowledge graph

🕵️‍♂️ AI Scraper: Bid farewell to manual scraping with AI-powered tool

💫 Magentic: Seamlessly integrate LLMs as Python functions

📸 Trickle: Summarize and organize screenshots for quick insights

🎙️ Poised: Get real-time feedback during meetings to enhance confidence

That’s all for today—if you have any questions or something interesting to share, please reply to this email. We’d love to hear from you!

P.S. If you want to sign up for the Supercharged newsletter or share it with a friend, you can find us here.