Rich Lambert, studio game director at Microsoft-owned ZeniMax Online Studios, says the team “doesn’t really use” generative AI. After a reported mandate from Microsoft for its subsidiaries to use AI (via Business Insider), ZeniMax is the latest studio to share its internal approach to the policy.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Lambert, alongside game director Nick Giacomini, was asked about AI and whether ZeniMax is finding uses for it.
“I mean, obviously we’ve looked into it,” Lambert replied. “Microsoft has got their big push for AI. But we don’t really use a lot of it right now. I use a lot of it for meeting summaries and whatnot, because it just makes my life easier. It helps organize my inbox and stuff like that. But we don’t have a ton of it right now.”
Generative AI tools are increasingly generating skepticism among professional game developers. According to recent reports, the sentiment is largely shared by some other studios under the Microsoft umbrella. In late August, anonymous sources at developer King, best known for the Candy Crush series, reportedly replaced laid-off workers with AI tools, though later reporting said the studio is reportedly having low AI adoption internally after Microsoft mandated its use.
Last year, Microsoft’s goal was reportedly in the 70 to 80 percent daily usage of AI on general tasks. Sources claim that the goal for this year was to get up to 100 percent, so that every developer, including managers, would have to use AI daily.
“AI adoption is very low apart from ChatGPT,” a source told MobileGamer. “King leadership is in general quite AI skeptic.”
This policy would differ from one reported at other Xbox Game Studios subsidiaries. During an interview at Gamescom LATAM, Compulsion Games founder and studio head Guillaume Provost told Game Developer that Microsoft isn’t demanding its first-party teams leverage the technology.
“Just based on the types of games that we make, I would say we are probably not the studio that will use AI the most, and I don’t think that bothers anything at Microsoft,” Provost said. “The DNA of our studio is to handcraft things and to make them feel handcrafted, and that involves a lot of manual labor.”
Amid increasing skepticism, Microsoft continues to be adamant about its push for AI
The GamesIndustry.Biz interview, published on Monday of this week, took place just over two months after ZeniMax Online Studios founder Matt Firor, who led the development of The Elder Scrolls Online, departed the company. The news came shortly after Microsoft commenced its latest round of layoffs at Xbox with an undisclosed number of job cuts.
The layoffs reportedly impacted several projects across Xbox’s roster of internal studios. As noted by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, the cuts also impacted an MMORPG that had been in development at ZeniMax Online Studios since 2018. Aside from its subsidiaries, Microsoft expressed its intention for the next Xbox to have “AI-powered features” that will “transform” gameplay. While it didn’t share details about what this entails exactly, the company says it will “start experimenting” with said features on the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally X device, which is launching next month.
The conversation about AI use at Xbox Game Studios is intertwined with Microsoft’s layoffs across its subsidiaries. The reports of King allegedly replacing laid-off employees with AI tools they’d helped build fit a pattern of large employers claiming the emerging technology can replace individual workers.
