Unity has teased the integration of AI development tools with a short trailer at GDC 2023.
The video appears to tease new, AI-powered tools that allow users of Unity to type in requests and have Unity take on the busy-work of making them real, similar to other text-based interfaces for AI such as ChatGPT, before encouraging interested users to sign up for more information.
Unity is used by tens of thousands of developers from amateurs and indies through to AAA studios to create hit game on every platform. Therefore it should be no surprise that Unity are throwing their hat into the ring when it comes to introducing AI tools.
Ever since the introduction of ChatGPT in November of 2022, both excitement and concern around generative AI has exploded. The use of AI art and the potential for generative tools to replace human developers and designers has been a consistent topic of discussion, while for proponents of the technology the potential streamlining and acceleration of development has been the primary focus. For Unity, who’s central mission is to make games development an easier process for developers of any level, this is another major step and follows their major moves into monetisation following their merger with ironSource last year.
Unified priorities
The Unity and ironSource merger last year was one of the major stories of 2022, marking a massive acquisition and seeing Unity, the popular game engine, merging with an equally sizey force in the field of digital advertising. Now the moves into AI and Unity’s next level are clear with interested parties being invited to sign ups as “insiders” here.
Unity boasted twin achievements this year, that saw its first profitable quarter since going public and also being named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies based on their work with VR and AR technologies. Given how VR has slowly begun to climb in popularity despite the continued expense and space requirements, it’s clear that their bet on the tech has begun to pay off.
With AI now being their next focus the question of how this will apply to mobile will be on everyone’s mind. It certainly doesn’t seem like they’ll be ignoring mobile as the company themselves reported recently that more players than ever are going to the mobile platform. So will we soon see these generative AI tools on mobile? It looks like it’ll be sooner rather than later certainly.