Unity Repackages Their AI Tools + Our Sponsor Update! | 25/06/25
Plus join our Meetup with Mastered at Develop!
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Hello and welcome to the latest issue of the
newsletter. I’m writing to you from the Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games currently running Malmo, Sweden.This week it’s our sponsor update: our deep-dive into behind-the-scenes work, including progress on upcoming case studies and YouTube videos, future newsletter topics, the conference and Goal State!
But before all of that, we the news, plus updates on the AI and Games Conference and our next event: a meet-up in collaboration with Mastered at Develop: Brighton next month!
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Announcements
As always, let us kick things off with some announcements AI and Games related and otherwise!
AI and Games Conference 2025
Things are trundling along nicely for this years event. I really appreciate the enthusiasm we’ve received thus far. Ticket sales are pretty strong despite us not announcing the programme yet. On that note, we will be making a bunch of announcements from August onwards as to what to expect at the event. In the meantime, the call for submissions is open until the end of July. Critically if you have questions about putting in a talk, either because you’re not sure if it’s a good fit or are curious as to what level to pitch it, be sure to get in touch!
In the meantime we continue our series of (re)introducing the advisory board, with Dr Gabriel Robert taking the lead. A principal gameplay programmer at Final Strike Games, Gabriel has over 20 years of experience in game AI and was involved in building AI for gameplay and production across numerous Ubisoft franchises such as Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, For Honor, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. As an added bonus, his guidance on submitting a talk is delivered as a poem!
This is Shraddha’s fault! The template example she shared was a poem about cats.
Greetings from the AI and Games Summer School
This issue has been published while Shraddha and I are attending the AI and Games Summer School, which is being hosted this year at the University of Malmo. I’ve been at it once again, with a short(er) version of my History of AI in Games talk from last year. Plus I am hosting a panel later this afternoon comprised of several of the speakers at the event.
Plus we hosted our very own AI and Games meetup last night, and despite the weather being horrendous outside, I think we can chalk it up as a success! Thanks to everyone who came out to join us. I hope you had a great time, and look forward to seeing you all again somewhere down the road.
AI and Games @ Develop: Brighton
Wrapping up the announcements, let’s take a look at the next event on the docket. I’m travelling down to sunny Brighton for the annual Develop games conference. It’s one of my few recurring fixtures in the games industry calendar given so many people across the sector converge just a couple hours away from AI and Games HQ. I am not giving a talk this year (I try to avoid talking two years in a row), but we do have a special surprise to announce!
The AI and Games x Mastered Meetup @ Develop!
I’m pleased to announce that AI and Games is building a collaboration with Mastered: an organisation that works to support studios and freelancers in creative industries with accessible training and skills bootcamps. I had the pleasure of meeting some of the folks at Mastered last year and it became readily apparent that our perspectives and values align. It doesn’t hurt that Mastered do fantastic work not just in facilitating training for creatives, but work to make it as financially viable as possible by utilising government funding initiatives - no small feat let me tell you.
So we’ll be hosting a small event during Develop to bring the AI and Games and Mastered communities together on Tuesday July 8th from 2:30pm to 4pm at The Walrus in Brighton. Spaces are limited, so if you’re in town and would like to learn more about how we can support your development journey, sign up and join us!
Book a One-on-One Meeting at Develop
Of course I’ll be around throughout the full three days and happy to engage with anyone to discuss working with us, so if you want to have a one-to-one, you can find my availability via the button below!
AI (and Games) in the News
It’s not been a crazy week by any stretch, but there has been a handful of interesting stories that caught my eye. Read on!
I’ll Leave You to Prepare…
Jane Perry, the award-winning voice actor whose performances include of characters such as Selene in Returnal and Diana Burnwood in Hitman gave an interview to GamesIndustry.biz discussing the challenges of the job, but also discussing the potential impact of generative AI in the sector. One line in particular caught my eye here
It must be amazing, fun, and totally gratifying to make a robot dance so well or an artificially generated voice sound almost human. But I fear the pleasure of crafting such extraordinary things makes those engaged in the process blind to the consequences. Generally, I champion creativity in all its forms. But this particular expression of creativity [generative AI] leaves me cold and also curious as to where we are all going to end up.
Removing AI Generated Art Leads to Indie Success!
The Roottrees Are Dead is a successful puzzle game launched earlier this year on Steam. A nostalgic title based in the 1990s, players scan through photos and other assets in an online dossier in order to solve the mystery behind the death of the business family the Roottrees. It is an expansion of a 2023 Global Game Jam game into a fully-fledged product. But also, as explored by The Verge, it’s a story of how the development team opted to remove the original AI-generated assets in order to make it more commercially viable.The UK Creative Industries Sector Plan
The UK government has declared their intentions to bolster financial support for the creative industries, including the video games industry. This includes a £30 million games growth package, plus aspirations to support the improved training and education in the sector. I haven’t had a chance to read through it in detail - and after everything with the UK government’s approach to AI I’m highly sceptical of any aspirations they have of supporting the creative sectors - but still I will try to go into this with an open mind!Unity 6.2 Beta Repackages their AI Tools
Last week Unity announced the new version of their AI workflows, dubbed ‘Unity AI’, as part of the 6.2 beta update to the engine. Previously, Unity’s introduction of AI features has been rather shotgun. Plugins ranging from ML-Agents, to the defunct Unity Behaviour and then AI tools such as Sentis for runtime of machine learning, and Muse for editor tools, have been treated as disparate features. Unity AI seeks to consolidate Muse and Sentis into an optional plugin that adds inference, editor assistance, and generators for textures, sound etc. and bakes them into the editor in a more seamless way.You can find out more about all of these features in the blog post on the Unity forums. Including how data is handled, privacy for users adopting the tools, regional limitations, but also costs. Right now Unity AI is free-to-use during the 6.2 beta, but over time it will become a paid feature, and relies on users purchasing credits to utilise.
The Sponsor Update
Okay, time for the last part of this weeks newsletter, and that’s to get into the sponsor update. For those new to the newsletter, all of our content creation is fan-funded. Our paying subscribers help us to finance the time and energy spent putting this content together, so if you enjoy the work we’re doing please consider becoming a paid subscriber, it really helps out!
One of the benefits we provide to our paying subscribers is the behind-the-scenes update, where we check in on everything we’re doing across:
AI and Games YouTube channels.
Our weekly newsletters and other article right here on
The 2025 AI and Games Conference
A little bit about our online course series Goal State.
And more!
Alrighty, let’s get into it.
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