Introducing the AI and Games Podcast | 26/06/26
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Hi everyone and welcome to the final issue of our ‘June announcement’ series here on AI and Games. I didn’t plan for it to work out like this, but we’ve had several projects all come to the fore in the last couple of weeks, including:
Announcing the AI and Games Conference 2026 running in London this November.
Our collaboration with Gamescom Dev happening this August in Cologne.
And now I’m pleased to announce our final announcement!
The AI and Games Podcast: a new fortnightly (biweekly) series which builds and expands on the existing content we’re delivering in the newsletter and our YouTube channel.
Today episode 0 has launched on the website, and you can subscribe right here or in the coming days on other platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music and more as those feeds start updating. So for today’s issue we’ll get into what we have planned, and then in the back half a deeper dive for premium subscribers on all the upcoming podcast guests, and all the other stuff we’re doing.
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AI and Games Events
A quick reminder to point you to all the cool stuff we have happening over the coming months:
Gamescom Dev AI Tracks [24th-25th August]
As we announced last week, we have two co-curated AI tracks at this year’s Gamescom Dev in Cologne - the largest game developer conference in Europe.
The first round of talks is live now, including speakers from Electronic Arts, The Multiplayer Group, Tencent, and Wargaming.
Tickets are on sale now, with our AI tracks part of your regular Gamescom Dev ticket, complete with access to the Gamescom trade show.
Plus we’re working with Gamescom Dev to deliver sponsorship packages that help promote businesses to our audience. Drop us an email via the button below to find out more about how you can partner with us.
AI and Games Conference 2026 [10th-11th November]
Early bird tickets will be on sale until end August 2nd
Call for speaker submissions is also open until August 2nd.
Accepted speakers will receive a free ticket.
All other submissions will receive voucher to purchase ticket at early bird rate.
Also I want to take a moment to welcome Mercuna - one of the industry’s leading AI navigation middleware providers - who have joined us as an Associate Sponsor for our 2026 event. We’re very excited to have them come on board and support us going forward. We still have sponsorship and other partnership opportunities available, hit the button to drop us an email!
The AI and Games Podcast
Back in August of last year we hosted our first annual subscriber drive, and we set out a bunch of targets for things we would like to do as this publication grows. Right now we’re seeing increased interest in the work that we do, but as you can imagine we’re limited by scope and budget. Despite the amount of content we put out - including a weekly newsletter, monthly YouTube videos, and now a fortnightly podcast - we’re a small outfit, and it’s thanks to the support of our audience that we can dedicate the time and resources to making this stuff.
During our subscriber drive we set a bunch of targets for what we will do in order to progress the site and our content further. Since August we’ve actually crossed two milestones:
The first is that we passed the 5000 free subscriber mark.
This means we will as promised host a small meet-up in London to celebrate.
However we’re figuring lets do it later in the year (less risk of being caught in a heatwave).
We doubled our premium subscribers to hit our first premium goal: launching the podcast!
I’ll publish an updated version of our funding goals later in the year. But for now, given we saw this on the horizon we started planning for it a couple of months ago, and putting things together, so when we hit the target for the goal we could launch within a few weeks of reaching it.
As you’ll notice going forward, this first ‘season’ of the podcast is brought to you in association with AWS for Games. The team at Amazon - who have been supporters of our conference the past couple of years - were very enthusiastic about us launching this new programme and wanted to help support us. This will also factor into what we have planned for this first season.
What to Expect For Our First Season
The podcast will be launched in both audio and video formats, given we know some folks really like to see us in action, and it’s going to act as an extension of the newsletter, with a focus on the following strands:
Reacting to the news and chatting with our friends in the industry about the impact of these headlines.
Explaining the big talking points happening in the industry in the moment.
Interviewing guests from across the sector about their work and their experiences in and around AI for games.
This will adhere to our own editorial principles of discussing meaningful iteration in the sector, challenging hype and misinformation, and continuing to build trust with you, our audience.
To give you a little bit of insight into our prep, we have already conducted several interviews and are editing them up now, and so here’s a sneak peak of our very first guest Dr Mike Cook, who I interviewed about this recently released ‘Next Level’ book that we reviewed on the newsletter not that long ago.
With AWS as our partner sponsor for the first season, we will have some interviews with them both through their development teams and the companies that they are working with. But we’re also working through our address book to chat with people we love and whose work we admire.
What other guests do we have lined up? Well, premium subscribers can find out about all the guests we have in the schedule later in this issue.
Benefits for Premium Subscribers
As always, we’re working away on trying to make this a valuable proposition for the good folks that support us. So we will keep the premium versions ad-free, but we will be looking at providing additional episodes for that audience.
30% Off Premium Subscriptions
On that note, to celebrate the launch we’re offering 30% off subscriptions until August! Click the button to go get it sorted out.
Premium Subscriber Updates
So with the new podcast announced, what can we come to expect? Well, truth be told we’ve been hard at work on accumulating running interviews with various guests from across the games industry to talk about their new projects, what they’re getting up to, their experiences of the current AI cycle, and more.
So while we’ll also cover a stack of upcoming YouTube projects and newsletter topics we have planned, we’re going to dedicate a good chunk of our premium subscriber update on what to expect from the podcast through the coming months! Onward!
Upcoming Podcast Guests
So while the podcast will have me periodically focus more on the news - be it by myself or with a colleague to talk through it - we have been focussing on getting a strong line-up of guests on board for the first couple of months.
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