Prepare for AI to ‘completely disrupt everything’

Artificial intelligence is set to have a huge impact on the gaming industry and its billions of players, according to Min-Liang Tan, the billionaire CEO and co-founder of gaming firm Razer.

From the ways in which games are developed to hacks for completing levels, Tan said the technology’s ramifications across the sector can’t be overstated.

“For us at Razer, the way we see it is that AI is going to completely disrupt everything, or change everything in gaming,” Tan told CNBC’s “Beyond the Valley” podcast.

Gaming plays a significant role in the creative sector, with 3.6 billion players around the world and annual revenue of nearly $189 billion, according to research company Newzoo, which tracks data across mobile, console and PC games.

“Game developers will now be able to use AI tools, and then you’ve got game publishers that will now distribute, market new games with AI tools … For gamers, the AI tools will be able to change things, in terms of the way they play,” Tan told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at Singapore’s SWITCH conference.

Razer, known for its gaming gear like mice, headsets and keyboards, has developed Game Co-AI, a tool that uses computer vision to “watch” how a gamer plays and provides tips on solving quests or defeating enemies. The tool will also use data such as public APIs, and a beta version of Game Co-AI will be available “later in 2025,” according to Razer’s website.

The potential use of AI in esports — or competitive gaming — has sparked debate, however.

“We will not have AI running, I think, during a game itself, but what about at the point of time of training?” Tan said. There is an appetite among some esports players to use AI to help coach future stars, Tan said. “There’s a lot of excitement in respect of this. The opportunities are limitless.”

Along with helping players, AI will also be able to detect and fix bugs when games are developed, according to Tan.

Traditionally, game testing involved “a whole bunch of people sitting in a room,” playing games and identifying bugs one by one, Tan said, in a process known as quality assurance or QA. Razer is developing an AI QA Companion, which can find and log bugs — and will soon also be able to suggest bug fixes, he added.

“[QA] is about 20% to 30% of the [development] costs, it takes up about 30% of the time,” Tan said, adding that the new tool will automate the QA process, making human testers more effective and productive.

The effects of AI are being felt across industries, but there is still some disagreement on how far AI can go in gaming.

Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of video game publisher Take-Two Interactive, which makes Grand Theft Auto, said on Tuesday that AI can’t rival human game developers.

When asked for his gaming predictions for a year’s time, however, Tan said: “I think we will be talking about some of the new, exciting games that have been built with AI, and how we see the future from that. Maybe we might see one or two major hit games.”

Developing a game usually involves large teams and significant investment, but AI will allow smaller groups of people to do so, according to Tan. Rather than being a threat to jobs, AI can remove “tedious” tasks, he added. “The human creativity still needs to be there.”

The way in which the gaming industry uses AI may have a wider impact beyond the sector, Tan said, suggesting that it could “spawn multiple other new industries.”

“A lot of what’s happening in the tech industry was born from gaming, and I believe that a lot of what will happen for AI will also be born from AI gaming,” he said.

Razer was founded by Tan and Robert Krakoff in 2005, and the company became known for the Boomslang, a mouse — named after a deadly snake — designed specifically for gaming. “For a gamer, the mouse is everything. It’s an extension of your arm,” Tan said. “The more precise your mouse is, the more likely you are going to be able to get frags,” he said, referring to the “kills” made in first-person shooter games.

Headquartered in Singapore and Irvine, California, Tan said the company went global “very quickly” after it launched. Razer went public in 2017, listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, before going private again in 2022.