EA says generative AI could make it 30% more efficient and boost monetisation by up 20% over 5 years

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has outlined the transformative impact he believes generative artificial intelligence can have on the company and the wider games business over the next five years.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Wednesday, EA’s boss said advancements in the technology are allowing the company to create richer, more personalised content increasingly rapidly.

Greater efficiency coupled with “deeper, more immersive experiences” will lead to significant audience expansion over the next few years and provide a “multi-billion dollar” growth opportunity, he said (transcribed by Techraptor).

Wilson said that in the past it might take six months to build an in-game sports stadium. Over the last 12 months, that time has shrunk to six weeks, and over the coming years it could maybe be cut to six days.

And while FIFA 23 has 12 run cycles for how the players move in the game, EA Sports FC 24 has 1,200 created with generative AI.

Over the next five years, Wilson hopes that generative AI will make EA’s development 30% more efficient, help grow its 700 million-strong player base by “at least” 50%, and lead to players spending 10-20% more money on its games.

“What we’ve seen every time there’s been a meaningful technological advancement in media and in technology, where you are able to democratise an industry and hand it over to the population at large, incredible things happen,” he said.

“And so, the way we think about this is how do we build these things to be more efficient? How do we build these things to allow us to build deeper, broader, more deep, more personal experiences? And then how do we give that to the world.

“And once you give that to the world where you have three billion players around the world creating personal content and expanding and enhancing the universes that we create, and building and creating their own universe on our technology platform, all of a sudden we are the beneficiaries of platform economics.

“And for me that’s a multi-billion dollar opportunity for us in addition to what we would otherwise get from our regular growth.”

While some workers in the industry have expressed concerns about AI’s potential impact on the job market, Wilson claimed developers within EA are embracing the technology, which is arguably most effective when used to augment developers’ capabilities rather than replace them.

“For creators of games, this is incredibly exciting: the ability to get to the fun faster and get to market faster is the Holy Grail for them”, he said.

“And so, we see a real embrace happening inside of our company around these things that can help them get to greatness much more quickly.”