Summary
Pokemon GOwill be debuting an artificial intelligence feature that will improve its AR mode sometime in 2024, a senior Niantic official has revealed. This bit of insight into the hit mobile game confirms that Niantic intends to join the growing list ofgame developers embracing AI technologies.
Recent years saw major advancements in machine learning and hardware that ushered in an era of innovative new AI solutions ranging from complex systems that can categorize photos, draw images, and even generate text, among other things. And although game developers haven’t been oblivious to these advancements, the commercial applications of such technologies are still in their infancy, so it very much remains to be seenhow AI will change gamingin the long term.
In the meantime, thePokemon GOteam is already exploring artificial intelligence tech, according to Niantic CEO John Hanke. In a recentinterview with BBC, the executive predicted that 2024 will be a massively important year for augmented reality apps in the vein of the company’s hit mobile game, not least because he expects such AR software to finally start converging with AI in the coming months. Niantic intends to be at the forefront of those innovations, and will launch the firstPokemon GOAI feature at some point in 2024, the CEO explained.
While the details about the upcoming functionality are still slim, Hanke revealed that Niantic intends to leverage AI to makePokemon GOcreatures react to their surroundings in a “realistic” fashion. The same technology will also be used for adjusting the pocket monsters' positioning with respect to their environments. In other words, the developer is apparently working on a machine vision solution that would minimize or eliminate scenarios in which creatures float in the air while usingthePokemon GOAR mode. The functionality would hence possibly be an extension of the AR+ mode that first debuted in the game in 2017.
Niantic intends to leverage AI to make Pokemon GO creatures react to their surroundings in a “realistic” fashion.
Such a feature would certainly help make the game more immersive, although it remains to be seen whether it would manage to significantly boost the AR mode’s popularity. Although Niantic never shared its detailed usage data, the fandom has long considered the AR aspect ofPokemon GOto be its most gimmicky feature that doesn’t add much gameplay value while being a huge battery hog. Due to that state of affairs, many fans have been playing the game with the AR mode disabled since its 2016 release.
While this incoming addition will mark the first AI-powered gameplay feature to reachPokemon GO, Niantic has conceivably already incorporated some artificial intelligence solutions into its development workflow. This possibility was recently raised by a number of fans whoaccusedPokemon GOof using AI-generated art.
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