Generative AI is now a driving factor behind Electronic Arts’ business, according Andrew Wilson, EA’s chairman and CEO, having told attendees at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Telecom Conference yesterday about how EA has already been using generative AI to improve its games and how the technology is expected to lead to greater benefits for the company, including improved efficiency and greater monetization. Wilson’s remarks come a week after EA announced that it was laying people off, canceling projects, and closing a studio.
Wilson on how generative AI already has, and will continue to, make EA more efficient:
- “…we’re in the era of generative AI, which is the most exciting yet by a fairly wide margin and something that we’re embracing deeply.”
- “…an example of that might be how we build a stadium. So if we build a stadium in one of our sports games that would typically take us six months. This past year it took us six weeks.”
- “…we don’t have the math on it yet, I would tell you in the back of my mind my orientation is how can we use generative AI to make us 30% more efficient as a company? How in three years from today could we be 30% more efficient? …this is incredibly exciting.”
Wilson on generative AI’s role in monetization :
- “…you’ve got to a point where you are optimized with your current development processes, what can you use generate AI to expand the experience for players?”
- “An example that we use from FC ‘23 to FC ‘24 was we had 12 run cycles. So, the path, the way you run in a game. We had 12 run cycles in FC in FIFA ‘23, in FC ‘24, we have 1200 run cycles all done with generative AI.”
- “…the math that we’re doing right now is we have 700 million people in our network. We think it’s not unreasonable to at least get 50% more people as a result of personalization, culturalization deeper, more immersive experiences.”
- “…we’re watching right now how generative AI impacts monetization on other platforms. And what we’re seeing is where there is real personalized content bespoke to me and bespoke to my friends, monetization is 10% to 20% greater.”
The bad news from Laura Miele, President of EA Entertainment and Technology, last week:
…we have decided to pivot away from early development on a Star Wars FPS Action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our owned brands while providing support for existing games. It’s always hard to walk away from a project, and this decision is not a reflection of the team’s talent, tenacity, or passion they have for the game. Giving fans the next installments of the iconic franchises they want is the definition of blockbuster storytelling and the right place to focus.
…we’ll be winding down Ridgeline as a standalone studio in Seattle, with some team members joining Ripple Effect. They’ll continue to work with teams across DICE, Ripple, and Criterion as they build the next Battlefield experience.