A startup with the first-ever artificial intelligence-powered “behavior engine” for characters in video games just raised $16 million.
Canada-based AI startup Artificial Agency announced it has come out of a year in stealth mode and raised $16 million in funding from investors including Radical Ventures and Toyota Ventures. The startup, founded by a group of former Google DeepMind researchers, said the funding will go toward developing its flagship product, which allows game developers to make video game characters more realistic and interactive with players. Artificial Intelligence also counts talent from AAA studios, which are known for high-budget, high-profile games.
With the AI-powered behavior engine, game developers can integrate generative AI into different aspects of the game, including “minor improvisation” of scripted interactions for non-player characters, or NPCs, and systems that control characters’ pacing and spawning. NPCs are not controlled by players, and typically have pre-written scripts which can limit a player’s gaming experience.
The funding will help the startup continue building its team and developing its behavior engine to bring it to market in 2025, Brian Tanner, co-founder and chief executive of Artificial Agency said in a statement shared with Quartz.
“We believe there’s an enormous amount of untapped potential for AI in the gaming industry,” Tanner said. “Our behavior engine will enable game developers to embed runtime decision-making seamlessly into any aspect of a game. Because the engine unlocks access to this powerful technology, it has huge applications for both large and small studios — helping games teams to iterate faster, drive new levels of creativity, and deliver a gaming experience that feels truly alive and more immersive for players.”
Tanner said Artificial Agency is “most excited” about the potential of its behavior engine possibly creating “an entirely new genre of games driven by social and runtime intelligence.”
The startup said it is collaborating with “several” AAA studios, and is aiming to make its AI-powered behavior engine widely available to video game studios in 2025.
While the AI boom is driving high demand for chips, the gaming industry has been a major customer of graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used in PCs and gaming consoles, for decades. Nvidia, which got its start making chips for video games, reported that its gaming revenue was up 18% year-over-year in its first-quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings report in May.