In a New Year’s letter released to the public, president of Square Enix Takashi Kiryu has pledged that the company will be “aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions”.
Kiryu states that this will enhance the productivity of development and “achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts” in the short term. So don’t expect any AI games soon, although the long-term intention to do exactly that is also noted.
So what does this actually mean? Well, it’s no surprise that Square Enix (like many companies in the gaming industry) is planning to investigate the use of AI as a development tool. The technology is out there and has cemented itself over the past few months as a big new discussion topic across the industry.